Discover Patti Cake$: the feel-good indie about a plus-size rapper

“Ditch all that shit.” That was the advice Tarantino gave Geremy Jasper at the Sundance Labs when he was writing the script for his first feature film Patti Cake$. Tarantino wasn’t being callous, he was grounding Jasper, forcing him to tighten up his script to ensure his film would make it to the big screen.

Tarantino was just one of many – including Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman), Kasi Lemmons (Black Nativity), Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine) and Tyger Williams (Menace II Society) – who guided Jasper along the way while he was developing his skills at the Sundance Labs. It was a process that Jasper found invaluable.

“I don’t know if this film would have been made if I hadn’t had the Sundance Labs,” he explains. “This is my first movie and no one was going to give me the money for the film I had in the first script. I had to think about it as a producer and make it more contained. That set me off and I began to feel somewhat legitimised.”

Patti Cake$ is a bold, brash and unashamedly feel-good film. At its heart is Patricia Dombrowski, played by break-out star-in-waiting Danielle Macdonald. Patti (aka Killa P) dreams of leaving her New Jersey home behind and making it big in New York as a rapper. However, Patti’s life is getting in the way of her dreams. She has to contend daily with her abusive alcoholic mother Barb, played by cabaret singer Bridget Everett. Then there is her ailing but supportive wheelchair-bound grandma (an unrecognisable Cathy Moriarty of Raging Bull fame), whom Patti cares for. In between pulling extra shifts as a waitress, and with the help of her best friend Jheri (Siddharth Dhananjay) and the self-described Basterd the Antichrist (Mamoudou Athie), Patti puts her plan into action to make the big time.

Killa P's crew: Siddharth Dhananjay, Danielle Macdonald, Cathy Moriarty, Mamoudou Athie

The film draws on Jasper’s own experiences of living in New Jersey and dreaming of making it as a musician. While Patti's genre is rap and hip-hop, Jasper was into punk, playing the New York music scene as lead singer of The Fever alongside bands such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Strokes. However, he eventually grew tired of the life of a musician on tour. His experience directing music videos sparked an interest in making movies and he went to work on the short film Glory at Sea, with Beasts of the Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin. It was an experience that educated him in the practicalities of filmmaking. Soon after he decided to write Patti Cake$, but knew that finding the right actor to play the film's eponymous wannabe rapper was essential.

The Australia-born Macdonald is not your typical leading lady by Hollywood standards, but this was the direction Jasper wanted to go in – using real, recognisable people with normal lives and hardships. Jasper recognised Macdonald’s raw talent as soon as he spoke with her and decided to bring her to Sundance to workshop the character, initially casting her from a picture alone. “Robert Redford pulled me aside towards the end of the project at Sundance,” recalls Jasper. “Normally he is like his own planet, so to be taken aside by Uncle Bob is a big deal, and he said, ‘Whatever you do, cast Danielle in your film,’ which was a real validation.”

The other members of the cast were discovered in different ways. Siddharth Dhananjay was found via his music videos on the WorldstarHipHop website, while cabaret singer Everett was found via her work with Amy Schumer. Jasper had also recently worked with Cathy Moriarty on a short film for fashion brand Belstaff, which in addition featured the bizarre combination of David Beckham and Harvey Keitel.

For the director, it was essential to have the right cast on board. “I learned early on that you are only as good as your collaborators. This is not a solo journey, you need an incredible team of artists that understand what it is you are trying to do and that bring something to the table,” says Jasper.

In an unusual move for a first-time filmmaker, Jasper decided to add another task to his to-do list before shooting. He would produce an entire album of the songs featured in the film. Using his skills from his days in The Fever, he wrote 15 original tracks for the movie, including the film's signature song PBNJ.

There were a lot of challenges to the recording. While Dhananjay had musical experience, Macdonald didn’t. She would not only need to learn how to rap, but also do it in a New Jersey accent.

“It was intense,” explains Jasper. “I remember going to this big hip-hop DJ called J.Period, and he asked, ‘How’s this lead actress as a rapper?’ and I turned to him and said, ‘Yeah, she’s good, we’ll get there,’ and he went, ‘Good, because this film won’t work unless she’s believable.’” Fortunately for Jasper, MacDonald proved to be a real talent, and easily convinces as an MC. “I like to work very hard and I have a high bar for when I am satisfied, but Danielle is a great actor, and an absolute workhorse,” he adds.

While Jasper is now a director well removed from the rock scene of his youth, music is still important to him. The film is a celebration of the genres he fell in love with as a teen, which include everything from glam rock to industrial punk, as well as hip-hop.

We begin to discuss the contemporary music scene. “Where I grew up, if you like a particular type of music you would dress a certain way, and it determined who you hung out with and your world view,” he explains. “I think that has changed a little bit with the internet and the digital age.”

He begins to recollect what he used to love about music. “It used to be that you would get into a genre and you couldn’t just pop down to the local music store and pick it up, you had to go on a quest and find and discover this music. You had to find someone who could turn you on to a certain type of music, and you would develop this musical family tree. Now everything seems flat. There isn’t a sense of history now.” Fortunately for us, Patti Cake$ celebrates good music as well as its history and, even if he believes the contemporary music scene is flat, his new film proves American indie cinema is very much alive and kicking.

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Patti Cake$ is released 1 Sep by 20th Century Fox