Danielle the white rapper gives a Killa performance
DANIELLE MACDONALD became an overnight sensation at the Sundance Film Festival, thanks to a movie in which she plays a white rapper from New Jersey.
But just like Patti ‘Killa P’ Dombrowski, the character she plays in director Geremy Jasper’s sublime movie Patti Cake$, Australian-born Macdonald has worked hard to achieve that success.
‘In the film, Patti works to make it. It’s not like she’s expecting it to happen. She makes her luck through preparation, hard work and timing,’ Macdonald said, as she walked along the beach in a long summer dress and a pair of coral red, suede block-heel sandals.
The actress has been just as focused since she moved to Los Angeles seven years ago, from her home in the Clareville Beach district of Sydney, out in the Northern Beaches, where she was raised by her mother, an accountant, and her father, who works in shipping.
In Patti Cake$, Patti (aka Killa P) lives in reduced circumstances with her mother (Bridget Everett) and grandmother — played by Cathy Moriarty, whom I first met when she made Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull.
Patti joins forces with a pharmacist, played by Siddharth Dhananjay; a mystery DJ rapper (Mamoudou Athie); and her granny.
Director Jasper spent three years developing the script with Macdonald, Everett and ‘Sid’ at the Sundance lab, where film and theatre scripts are written, honed and workshopped.
The film is playing in the Cannes Film Festival sidebar Directors’ Fortnight today and will close the Film4 Summer Screen festival at Somerset House on August 23, with the director and cast in attendance.