Teen Star Danielle Curiel Talks Directing Prince’s “Breakfast Can Wait” Video

Danielle Curiel – Breakfast Can Wait music video – 01

Danielle Curiel in Prince's "Breakfast Can Wait" Music Video

Danielle Curiel in Prince’s “Breakfast Can Wait” Music Video

She can sing, dance, act, create quite the visual experience, and she’s an absolute knock-out… Danielle Curiel is a quintuple threat at just 18 years old.

Leave it to Prince to find red-headed phenom who directed and starred in his music video for Breakfast Can Wait ,” a sultry new single with bandmates 3rdeyegirl .

“He said he wanted it to be very big in the dance world,” Danielle recently told OK! Magazine . “So I made it very dance-influenced. I had auditions, and there were like 1,000 people. That’s how it started.”

Featuring choreography by Nicole Kirkland , the video’s 1.5 million views aren’t necessarily to see Prince who doesn’t appear at all, but to see Danielle — who the legend lets steal the show.

Danielle Curiel behind the scenes of "Breakfast Can Wait"

Danielle Curiel behind the scenes of “Breakfast Can Wait”

She isn’t exactly sure how Prince found her, but her résumé is stacked with commercial appearances (Zumba World Party, Adidas, Just Dance 4, X Box), live shows (Essence Festival, 2013 BET Awards, Jimmy Kimmel with PSY), and print campaigns.

She’s danced in music videos for Miguel ‘s “Adorn,” Daddy Yankee ‘s La Noche De Los Dos ,” and Mayra Verónica ‘s “ Mama Mia ” along with her sister Amanda Branche — the rapping half of their music group, CurlyFryz .

None of which show Danielle quite like Taps “When You Said Goodbye,” in which she stars or “Breakfast Can Wait,” where she even got to impersonate Prince.

“Instead of making it super sexual, I thought ‘Breakfast can wait—for dance,'” Danielle said. “Instead of staying in one place, we entered into this imagination world, in their heads. They’re in the kitchen, and this is in their heads.”

Despite the magnitude of what she was tasked with at such a young age, she didn’t buckle under pressure. “I’m pretty mature for my age. So I’m like, I can handle it. I’m not a big crybaby or anything. I’m very strong, my mom raised me to be very strong. My mom was by my side the whole time.”

Danielle Curiel

To execute the video, Danielle communicated with Prince primarily through email. “He would always say his full-on ideas of what he wanted. It was good communicating with him—he was very, very open to all of my ideas. He really didn’t disagree with anything that I said. He just let me go, which was so awesome.”

As for the sex appeal oozing out of the “Breakfast Can Wait” clip she says, “It wasn’t like I was being sexy to be sexy. Me being sexy is through my dance.”

Danielle’s future plans include more directing, “I loved the experience,” but she’s not interested in starring in anymore music videos … “I’d love to do shows, I want to do movies…”

And she’s excited to see CurlyFryz take off, “Prince may be interested… He’s helping us, developing us. We might get that going.”

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