At 22, she has already taken the fashion world by storm. Now, Slick Woods is sizzling in her film debut, Goldie, which recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The stunning model has strutted her stuff in all of her gap-toothed, shaved-head glory on runways for Marc Jacobs and in campaigns for Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty and Savage x Fenty. But for Goldie–helmed by director Sam De Jong, Woods had to get super personal. In the film, the Minneapolis native stars as the titular character, Goldie, an 18-year-old dancer determined to follow her dreams. Unfortunately, an opportunity to star in a music video for rapper Tiny (A$AP Ferg), is undermined when Goldie’s mother, Carol (Marsha Stephanie Blake), is arrested and she’s left to care for her younger sisters Sherrie, 8, and Supreme, 12 (Alanna Renee Tyler-Tompkins and Jazmyn C. Dorsey).
Determined to follow her dreams and keep her sisters out of the foster care system–Goldie uses every trick in her toolbox to keep her sisters safe while plotting to buy a gorgeous canary yellow fur-coat for the video. Though Goldie’s story is fictional and set in the Bronx–the character’s trajectory is eerily similar to Woods’. The Instagirl was homeless for many years after her mother was imprisoned for manslaughter.
Reliving her past wasn’t always easy for Woods, and throughout the 21-day shoot during a blazing hot New York summer in 2017, she often found herself at odds with De Jong. “Me and Sam argued the whole damn time,” she revealed. “But we got very close, and I respect everything about him because he always stood up to me. When I argued with him, he’d be like ‘No.’ Even times when I was crying, he was like ‘I need more! I need more!’ And I was like, ‘Fu*k this!’ Every time I cried, it was real. Goldie resonated with me because of what I’ve been through in my life. I was homeless on the street for twelve years –so being on the street again…it’s like I had PTSD.”
Ahead, this is what Woods had to say about her film debut, why Goldie was like therapy for her, and why acting forces her to step outside of her comfort zone.
Image: Alystyre Julian.
Stepping On to The Big Screen
“Sam always gave me a very comfortable vibe. even though we got into arguments every day. It’s very hard expressing black culture through someone that’s from Amsterdam. However, he does know what he’s doing. The thing about it is, he doesn’t know the Black American experience, but he was willing to listen and learn.”
Hollywood vs. Real life
“When Goldie was on the street, I was sitting there thinking; ‘I’ve really been on the street. I’ve cried on the streets.’ I could sit up here with Gigi and Bella Hadid, I could sit up here with Taylor Swift, but that right there was from my life. I’ve seen my mom go to prison. There’s a scene when a lady offers Goldie pizza, and she slaps the pizza out of the lady’s hand. That was my idea. That was me when I was hungry. When I was homeless, I had pride. That was important to me. I don’t want anybody doing sh*t for me.”
Image: Alystyre Julian.
Reliving the Hard Times
“I’ll be honest with you, dealing with my normal life and this movie was frustrating. At one point was I got said, ‘You’re all playing dress-up! I’m talking to the fake police!’ I was going in. I was in the bathroom crying for 20 minutes, and I came back out, and Sam was like ‘Are you, cool?’ This movie was pushing through things I didn’t know I could. It was therapy. I went through a lot of things that I didn’t know I had problems with. Everything I ever went through was represented and replicated. It was all of the hardest times I ever went through in my life done thirty times over. That’s why I gave [Sam] such a hard time. My momma was in prison for 21 years, and I had to raise myself. My brother was killed in front of me when I was 13. I lost everything that meant something to me, but then I gained everything. I’ve got what everybody else wants in the world.”
Slick vs. Goldie
“Goldie and I are very separate. I’m very ‘Take Charge.’ I don’t submit, I like to take over. I’m a boss, and I don’t mean that in terms of money. Everyone’s like ‘How do you get your confidence?’ I got it from my mom. My mom’s always walking around like she’s the baddest b*tch in the world. I’ve never done anything I didn’t want to do. I’m very real. Living with these different characters hurts me a lot. I just love being who I am, and it’s taken a long time for me to be comfortable with myself. But, I’m doing another film right now with Nicolas Cage and Antonio Banderas. Acting is like stepping out of my comfort zone.”
Goldie premiered April 25, 2019 at the Tribeca Film Festival