Australia finally wakes up to home grown star

The irony of Danielle Macdonald making it in Hollywood before being considered for a guernsey back home isn’t lost on the actor.

• Star-on-the-rise Leila George won’t have to wait long
• NSW must act or lose millions on big film productions

The irony of Danielle Macdonald making it in Hollywood before being considered for a guernsey back home isn’t lost on the actor. It was only when the 27-year-old won critical acclaim for her breakthrough lead role in indie US film Patti Cake$ that Australia sat up and
took notice.

So too though did Hollywood and Macdonald is now being pegged as one of our biggest acting hopes in the movie capital in years.

“All of a sudden I had meetings,” she tells Insider. “There would be a brief for a character that was clearly not me and they still wanted to see me for it. That was a really cool crazy thing that I did not expect and that I am incredibly grateful for because I love working and it has been really cool to go from project to project and get to play different kinds of characters and have different experiences.”

Danielle Macdonald.

Macdonald, who grew up in Sydney and studied at the Australian Institute of Performing Arts in Naremburn, is speaking by phone during a break from shooting her first ever Australian project.

She’s back home to shoot the Helen Reddy biopic I Am Woman.

Tilda Cobham-Hervey stars as Reddy, the Grammy Award-winning 1970s pop star whose anthem I Am Woman made her a feminist legend, while Macdonald plays her close friend, rock journalist and club owner Lilian Roxon.

MORE STORIES FROM JONATHON MORAN

THEY DID! KARL AND JASMINE’S WEDDING SECRET

‘TRUTH HASN’T BEEN TOLD ABOUT DIANA’S DEATH”

“It is my first time filming in Australia and it has been so much fun I am sad it is going to end,” Macdonald says, sounding genuinely pained at the thought of production wrapping.

“I have been loving working with an Aussie crew. We are all playing real people, which is really cool but also scary because you want to do it justice as well. You want to get it right so it is kind of terrifying but at the same time you have all this research already done for you.”

I Am Woman is just the latest in a long list of projects for Macdonald, who has worked non-stop since Patti Cake$ came out early last year.

Macdonald with Jennifer Aniston in Dumplin'.

Her big Hollywood entree will come in just a few weeks’ time when Macdonald walks the red carpet alongside co-star Jennifer Aniston at the world premiere of Netflix film, Dumplin’, in Los Angeles.

That will be followed by dystopian thriller Bird Box, another Netflix film, in which she shares the screen with Oscar winner Sandra Bullock, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson and Jacki Weaver. And she will soon be seen with Toni Collette in Unbelievable, a series based on the true story of a teen who recants a rape report, also streaming on Netflix. Then she has the big-screen drama Skin with Jamie Bell and fantasy Paradise Hills alongside Milla Jovovich and Emma Roberts.

“All of a sudden people were willing to see me in different roles, roles that were not specific to me and have actually nothing to do with my weight or how I look. It was literally just me as a character, as an actor,” Macdonald says.

“Growing up your typical lead was thin, fit, beautiful; that is just what you’d picture.

“Now it is more diverse and different. Now we have different types of people, we have more ethnicity in lead roles finally. We are actually branching out. We have uniquely beautiful women rather than just your typical standard. I think it is just the industry is growing and I think more people have more opportunities. You don’t have to look one particular way anymore.”

The rising Aussie star in Patti Cake$.

umplin’s focus on body image rang true for Macdonald given it was something she struggled
with as a kid.

Based on Julie Murphy’s young adult book of the same name, the musical comedy follows plus-size teen Willowdean “Dumplin’ ” Dickson (Macdonald), who decides to follow in the footsteps of her mum Rosie (Aniston), a former teen beauty queen.

“One of the biggest draws of Dumplin’ was I am getting to play a character that I really could have related to when I was a teenager,” she says.

“It really is about who you are and self-acceptance and loving yourself and being OK with your body and all of those things. That was really important for me too because it was an experience I did have.”

Now though, she is comfortable in her own skin.

”I am now at a point where I am just a human being” Picture: Phill Limprasertwong

“I am now at a point where I am just a human being. It doesn’t have to be the focus of every conversation. It is a conversation 100 per cent but it is not everything, it is not all of me and that is the important part.

“As a teenager it is all you focus on. But when you get older you grow, you learn, you get more confidence, you are a human being. It is a really important process to go through and that is why doing Dumplin’ was important to show that process.”

DUMPLIN’ WILL STREAM ON NETFLIX FROM DECEMBER 7

BIRD BOX WILL STREAM ON NETFLIX FROM DECEMBER 21