Wherever she goes, Patricia Dumbrowski spits bars. She raps in her dreams. While brushing her teeth. Changing her grandmotherâs diaper. Into the loudspeaker at a convenience store. At her catering job. Inside abandoned shacks in parks. She jots lyrics in journals and freestyles in parking lots. She drives a burnt-red station wagon with a license plate that reads âPATTIWGN.â She fantasizes about a glistening hip-hop career, far away from the monotony of her lower-class New Jersey upbringing.
Patricia Dumbrowski is also 23, plus-size and white, with thick, curly blond hair that falls below her shoulders. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Killa P to the stage. Youâve never seen a rapper like this.
Really, Patricia Dumbrowski is Danielle Macdonald, a fledgling Australian actress whoâd never rapped â she canât even sing â before Geremy Jasper chose her for the lead role in his new movie, âPatti Cake$.â Jasper saw a photograph of Macdonald and knew right away that she was his star.
As for the whole rapping thing? âI was like, âI canât say yes to this,ââ Macdonald, 26, recalled during an interview last month at HuffPostâs New York offices. âI donât know why this guy thinks I can rap, but I cannot.â
Oh, whatever â theyâd figure that out later, Jasper said. And they did.
âPatti Cake$,â which opens in theaters Friday, became one of this yearâs Sundance Film Festival crowd-pleasers. The movie rests on Macdonaldâs shoulders, and she was christened an instant luminary. Itâs a rags-dreaming-of-riches story: Patti and her BFF (newcomer Siddharth Dhananjay) stare at the Manhattan skyline across the Hudson River, longing to parlay their rhymes into a record deal.
Macdonald, who moved to Los Angeles at 18 and earned her Screen Actors Guild credentials via an episode of âGlee,â has appeared in the low-budget thriller âThe Eastâ and a couple of indies that were barely released theatrically (âTrust Me,â âEvery Secret Thingâ). In 2014, Jasper called to ask her to attend the Sundance screenwriting lab in Utah, where nascent filmmakers spend a few weeks workshopping their projects with the help of Hollywood professionals. (âReservoir Dogs,â âBoys Donât Cry,â âRequiem for a Dreamâ and âFruitvale Stationâ are among the many movies that went through the lab.) There, Macdonald and Jasper perfected the character of Patti â her cramped home life, the disenchantment hidden beneath her confident facade. Assuming âPatti Cake$â would never get studio financing with an unknown like her as the lead, Macdonald treated the adventure like a âterrifyingâ acting exercise. Surely someone else would get cast by the time the movie was greenlit, she thought â probably someone who could rap.
Fast-forward three years, and itâs hard to imagine anyone but Macdonald in the role. Onscreen, she carries herself with the command of a veteran star, well aware of the winking humor inherent in a doughy white girl who can out-perform the best of them. Patti lives in a modest Jersey house with her wheelchair-reliant, chain-smoking grandma (Cathy Moriarty) and an oft-drunk mother (Bridget Everett) who would rather people think of Patti as her sister who helps with their mounting bills.
Macdonald learned to rap by studying PTAFâs âBoss Ass Bitchâ and Nicki Minajâs catalog, particularly âTruffle Butter,â breaking down the songs line by line. (She could never master Kendrick Lamarâs âControlâ verse, though. âHe does not breathe, I swear,â Macdonald said, laughing.) Sheâd mark up the lyrics, indicating where to take a breath or pause, until she didnât need the coding system anymore and was ready to lay down Pattiâs original tracks. In came a dialect coach to help with the Jersey intonations and a rap coach to help her âsit in the beat and be more comfortable.â
The final results earned Macdonald a standing ovation at the movieâs Sundance premiere. Now, sheâs headed for the big leagues. She appeared in the finale of âAmerican Horror Story: Roanokeâ â the experience matched the frenzy of every Ryan Murphy production; Macdonald got the job 15 hours before the shoot started â and has a supporting part in the Greta Gerwigâdirected comedy âLady Bird,â opening in November. Sheâll soon put her amateurish musical appetite to further use in âDumplinâ,â playing a Texas-based Dolly Parton obsessive who enlists in a pageant to piss off her beauty-queen mother (Jennifer Aniston). Macdonald also scored the headlining role in the forthcoming adaptation of the novel White Girl Problems. And sheâll always have "rapper" on her rĂ©sumĂ©.
âIf you make one person happy, there you go â you did your job,â she said, reflecting on the attention âPatti Cake$â has already received before hitting theaters. âWith this movie, it was very weird because on set it felt very special always. Very magical. But at the same time, youâre like, âNo one will see this, but this feels special.â When Sundance happened, it felt insane and not like reality at all. I was in this bubble with these same people. Now Iâm just taking it one day at a time.â
âPatti Cake$â opens in select theaters Aug. 18.