Danielle Cormack in the Kings at the Vanguard. Photo / Instagram
Australian-based Kiwi acting star Danielle Cormack was unrecognisable when she took to the stage in drag at a Sydney burlesque and cabaret bar on Friday night.
The former Shortland Street and Wentworth star had the top billing in production company The Drag Kings’ The Kings at The Vanguard.
Drag has evolved to become an inclusive, intersectional and binary-busting art form and Cormack’s debut character, Ponyboi, is quite the creation.
The Drag Kings Instagram describes Ponyboi as the daredevil stuntie/emerging actor you have been waiting for.
“Goodbye New Zealand — watch out Hollywood.”
Ponyboi is stunting and body-doubling his way to bigger horizons and, hopefully, a lead role in a blockbuster.
“This lil’ Pony loves to play with fire. He literally did catch fire on a film set in a stunt that went horribly wrong but that’s another story.
“You might’ve already slapped your eyes on his burnt rump … Ponyboi graced screens in the hit budget underground, soft porn, straight to video 21 Pump Street, where he played the titular character, Johnny Deep.”
Cormack shared the company’s post and her fans went crazy, hoping they would see Cormack indulging in her other favourite pastime, riding her Harley-Davidson.
Since starring on Wentworth, Cormack has grown a huge international LGBTQIA+ fanbase and has attended Comic Con-styled fan events worldwide. On her Instagram, she plays up to her lesbian character, Bea Smith, and supports the community in numerous ways.
Cormack apologised that she couldn’t talk to Spy and share more about Ponyboi as her schedule for filming was chocka this week.
The 52-year-old actor is filming SBS series Erotic Stories — a diverse anthology drama whose lead characters are not the ones typically written as sexual leads on Australian screens; be it queer, gender-diverse, living with disability, middle-aged and/or people of colour.
SBS, the national public television network, promises the series will be “transgressive”, “deliciously provocative” and “change the narrative of what sex and intimacy look like today”.
Cormack also has star billing in another Australian drama series called Year Of — a high-school drama that is in post-production. The new show is a spinoff of Aussie streaming giant Stan’s series, Bump. Year Of is described as the final two years of Sydney school Jubilee High, years that are both traumatic and exciting for the students, their parents and teachers.
This week the mother of two gave Child Fund New Zealand a shout-out on Instagram, suggesting the perfect Mother’s Day Gift was a Child Fund Seed Card, which contains seeds that grow into wildflowers, with the donations raised going towards the charity’s worthwhile children’s projects.