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. Goldieresonated 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.
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Image: Instagram.