Bright Star

Mamoudou athie lights up the screen with a breakout performance in the triumphant hip-hop dramedy patti cake$.

- Brian Moylan

The character that Mamoudou Athie plays in Sundance and Cannes sensation Patti Cake$ is named Basterd, the Antichrist. He’s a nearly mute, dread-locked death-metal aficionado with multiple lip piercings and one light-blue contact lens that makes it look like he sacrificed an eyeball to Satan. Athie himself is the total opposite. A young-looking 28-year-old, his handsome face (free of all metal, markings, and weird contact lenses) emits light like a Chinese lantern. He’s talkative and jovial, quick to laugh, and apologetic to a fault, saying he’s sorry for everything including his reluctant Paleo diet habits to being a boring video subject. He loves everyone he’s ever worked with and throws around the descriptor “genius” to everyone from his co-star Danielle Macdonald to his clown instructor at the Yale School of Drama.