Patti Cake$ director Geremy Jasper: It’s always been a very intimate personal film; to feel like people connect, it’s bigger than anything I could ever imagine

His debut film about a female wannabe rap star from New Jersey, starring the little-known Australian actress Danielle Macdonald, was bought by Fox Searchlight for $9.5m

Patti Cakes director Geremy Jasper (Kristina Bumphrey/StarPix)

When Patti Cake$ played at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, it was a dream come true for debut writer-director Geremy Jasper. This tale of a female wannabe rap star from New Jersey, starring the little-known Australian actress Danielle Macdonald, was bought by distribution giant Fox Searchlight for a cool $9.5m. “I still can’t believe it,” says Jasper. “It’s such a small film about this little corner of the world, with no movie stars. For me, it’s always been a very intimate personal film; to feel like people connect with this, it’s bigger than anything I could ever imagine.”

For the most part, hip-hop films tend to revolve around male-oriented real-life biopics – NWA story Straight Outta Compton, Tupac Shakur tale All Eyez On Me or the Eminem-starring 8 Mile, which borrowed heavily from the rapper’s Detroit upbringing. It makes the fictional Patti Cake$ unique, a film that vividly promotes female empowerment. What’s more, with Macdonald’s frizzy-haired Patricia Dombrowski (cruelly nicknamed “Dumbo”) and her overweight boozy mother Barb (Bridget Everett) far from waif-like, it’s a pleasing snub to the body-conscious Hollywood.

If most rap films include obligatory scenes of drive-by shootings, police harassment and excessive partying, Patti Cake$ rejects these in favour of a generational story of familial discord and disappointment. Known on the streets as “Killa P” or “Patti Cake$”, Patricia’s humdrum existence sees her tend a crummy bar to help pay the bills and look after her grandmother (Cathy Moriarty), while single mother Barb festers with resentment over her own existence – neatly summed up when she belts out a heartfelt karaoke rendition of Heart’s “These Dreams”.

‘Patti Cake$’ stars the little-known Australian actress Danielle Macdonald as a wannabe rap star from New Jersey

A former musician who sang vocals in the New York band The Fever, Jasper eventually went on to shoot music videos for the likes of Florence + The Machine (”Dog Days Are Over”). But secretly, like Patti, he harboured ambitions of a career in hip-hop, despite lacking certain attributes. “I just don’t have the voice for it, and I always sounded ridiculous on the tracks,” he admits. He even dreamt of becoming a rap music producer. “But I had no idea how you can get into that world… so Patti became my alter ego.”

Jasper, who wrote all of Patti’s caustic rhymes, met Macdonald while drafting the script, then asked her to come to the 2014 Sundance Director’s lab to help develop the character. “I did a lot of things on this film then I never thought I would do and I never thought I’d be able to do,” says Macdonald. “Having someone like Geremy have that sort of confidence in me really helped and really changed the game for me, because it was terrifying going off to the labs, but it was also such a cool script that really moved me. I was like, ‘I want to be a part of this’ and I went out and I did it.”

Jheri (Siddharth Dhananjay) and Patti (Danielle Macdonald) in ‘Patti Cake$’

Sydney-born Macdonald, who has been living in Los Angeles for the past few years, had no previous experience performing hip-hop. With Jasper sending her a new track a week to learn, she spent over 18 months preparing to turn herself into a Jersey girl capable of spitting out rhymes on the streets. “I just was listening to hip-hop music constantly,” she says. “I was practicing multiple times a week, I was learning the accent, I was listening to that on repeat. Once I had the accent it was a lot easier to figure out where she is in that world.”

Alongside Macdonald, Jasper’s smartest move was signing Cathy Moriarty, the Oscar-nominated actress (from her debut role in Martin Scorsese’s 1980 classic Raging Bull) almost unrecognisable here as Patricia’s wheelchair-bound grandma. They first met on the “weird” short film Outlaws directed by Jasper, for lifestyle brand Belstaff. “It was her, David Beckham, Harvey Keitel… and [some] Mexican circus freaks,” Jasper remembers. After that, anything might sound normal.

Still, Patti Cake$ required the glamorous 57-year-old to age 20 years, and Moriarty’s presence adds real emotion to the three-way mother-daughter dynamic. Here is a family that steadfastly refuse to show any outward signs of affection. “They say it’s much easier to be a grandparent than a parent,” notes Moriarty, “and the care and the love that I show to my granddaughter I also have for my daughter but never showed her.”

Macdonald has been cast alongside Jennifer Aniston in ‘Dumplin’ and in ‘White Girl Problems’, with Elizabeth Banks

One of the more unlikely (but highly amusing) sequences is when Patricia finally gets a chance to cut a track, called “PBNJ”, and brings Moriarty’s character into the makeshift studio to lay down some lyrics. “You don’t picture an old lady like me rapping!” laughs the actress, who finds this sudden elevation to hip-hop guru all rather amusing. “I’m going to be on a record. I’m psyched. Now I will be cool to my kids. I’m wondering if I will make their playlists.”

Macdonald, 26, is similarly stoked at the idea of their soundtrack album topping the billboard charts. “That would be absolutely insanely ridiculous,” she laughs. “I mean, hey, keep positive, it’s all you can do.” Either way, she stands to be the one to benefit the most from Patti Cake$, having already been cast alongside Jennifer Aniston in Dumplin’ and in White Girl Problems, with Elizabeth Banks. There’s also a role for her in Lady Bird, the directorial debut by actress Greta Gerwig.

It marks a change for Macdonald, who has frequently been relegated to the status of the lead character’s best friend because she doesn’t conform to Hollywood’s slim ideal. “It’s like, ‘Great… I won’t get to have my own story because I don’t look a certain way’. People don’t mean it to be insulting, it’s just how society is. That’s why I think it’s incredible when you have movies like this, because it’s like we are showing someone else’s life that’s different. I think that’s really cool.”

While this indie minnow may struggle against the blockbuster tide when it comes to finding an audience, Jasper is still hopeful that with studio backing it will get seen. In his eyes, it’s every bit as relatable and inspirational as that other Patty – Jenkins – and her hit Wonder Woman. “There are a lot of Pattis out in the world, and there are definitely a lot in America,” he says. “It’s for those young women. I didn’t want it to just be in this kind of indie film bubble. I want those young women to be able to see this film. It’s really important to me.”

‘Patti Cake$’ opens on 1 September