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Rosario Dawson (born May 9, 1979) is an American actress and singer, perhaps best known for her roles in the films Sin City, He Got Game, Rent and most recently as a lead character in Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. New York born and bred beauty Rosario Dawson landed her first film role in Larry Clark's controversial "Kids" (1995) after being discovered by the director while hanging out near her East Village tenement home. The unseasoned performer played Ruby in the film, a free-speaking sexually promiscuous teen who gets tested for HIV after engaging in extensive risky behavior. "Kids" was both praised and derided for its depiction of American urban youth, and the controversy resulted in the young actress winning a much larger audience for her acting bow than was expected. Her turn was appropriately chilling, although it was the dark-haired, wide-eyed fifteen-year-old's uncommonly striking and unsettlingly attractive appearance that would separate her from the rest of the cast. Dawson was born in New York City, the daughter of Isabel, a Bronx-born professional vocalist, and Greg Dawson, a construction worker. The two are now divorced. Dawson's mother is of Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban descent and her father is of Irish and Native American ancestry. Dawson grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side and has a brother named Clay. She and her family squatted in an abandoned building during most of her childhood. While attending school, she had aspirations of becoming a marine biologist. Although showing no interest in acting as a child, Rosario was discovered on her front porch step by photographer Larry Clark and Harmony Korine, where Harmony lauded her with praise as being perfect for a part he had written in his screenplay that would become the 1995 controversial films Kids. Since then Dawson's films have varied; ranging from independent films, to highly successful big budget blockbusters, and large scale box office bombs. Among her successes are He Got Game, opposite professional basketball player Ray Allen, and Men in Black II, which saw her sharing the screen with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones; among her failures are The Adventures of Pluto Nash (which was nominated for six Golden Raspberry Awards) and the live-action film adaptation of Josie and the Pussycats. Dawson made the most of her opportunity in "Kids" and pursued an acting career. Her next major role was that of Lala in Spike Lee's "He Got Game" (1998). Here she played a bewitching but opportunistic girlfriend to uncommonly talented basketball player Jesus (Ray Allen), eager to get her share of his potential fame and wealth. Dawson could also be seen that year in the episodic comedy "Side Streets", playing a Puerto Rican Bronx native with relationship problems in this New York City-set feature looking at people in each of the city's five boroughs. In 1999, Dawson teamed up with Prince for his timely re-release of his 1980s hit "1999". This remixed version featured the actress in an introductory voiceover, offering commentary on the state of the world in the titular year. Later in 1999, she was featured in the New York City high school hostage drama "Light It Up", playing a brainy, cool-headed student encouraging moderation in the explosive situation. 2000 saw her with a supporting role as flaky party girl Lana in the disappointing romantic comedy "Down to You". In 1999, Dawson teamed up with Prince for the re-release of his 1980s hit "1999". The new remixed version featured the actress in an introductory voice over, offering commentary on the state of the world in the year before the Millennium. The same year she appeared in The Chemical Brothers' video for the song "Out of Control" from the album Surrender. She is also featured on the track "She Lives In My Lap" from the second disc of the OutKast album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, during which she speaks the intro and a brief interlude towards the end. Dawson's career was certainly on the ascent. She landed a co-starring role in the Edward Burns romantic comedy "Sidewalks of New York" (2000) and was also cast as Valerie in the live-action adaptation of "Josie and the Pussycats" (2001). In 2002, Dawson was involved in saving the world in the summer sequel hit "Men In Black II". She replaced Halle Berry as the female lead of the long-delayed futuristic comedy "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" opposite Eddie Murphy and ended the year co-starring in Spike Lee's crime drama "The 25th Hour." Her most commercial role to date came when she was cast alongside The Rock and Seann William Scott in the crowd-pleasing action-comedy-buddy flick "The Rundown" (2003), serving as the love interest for the stars' combative characters, and the actress's fiery depiction of Alexander the Great's hellcat wife Roxanne (and her erotic if violently charged nude scenes) were among the best elements of Oliver Stone's bloated would-be epic "Alexander" (2004). In 2004 Dawson appeared in Oliver Stone's Alexander as the bride of Alexander the Great. In August-September 2005, Dawson appeared on stage as Julia in the Public Theatre revival of Galt MacDermot's 1971 musical Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. She starred in the film adaptation of the popular musical Rent, where she played the exotic dancer Mimi Marquez, replacing the original Mimi, Daphne Rubin-Vega, who was pregnant at the time of filming. She also appeared in the adaptation of the graphic novel Sin City, where she played the prostitute-dominatrix, Gail. She will appear in Sin City's sequel in 2008. As the neice of a professional cartoonist, Dawson was naturally drawn to appear in director Robert Rodriguez and writer-artist Frank Miller's visually arresting adaptation of Miller's crime noir comic book series "Sin City" (2005), playing the dominatrix prostitute/"warrior woman" Gail in "The Big Fat Kill" sequence, gleefully mowing down the enemies of Old Town's hookers with automatic weapons while still looking fabulous in lingerie. She then had an arresting, carnally charged turn as the alluring but heroin-addicted dancer Mimi Marquez in the 2005 big screen adaptation of the smash Broadway musical "Rent," revealing a terrific aptitude for song and dance. Although the film's cast was populated by many of the stage play's original players, Dawson stole scenes from them all with her canny ability to attract on camera. In 2005, Dawson appeared in a graphically violent scene in the Rob Zombie film The Devil's Rejects. Though the scene was cut from the final film, it is available in the deleted scenes on the DVD release. In 2006's Clerks II, Dawson starred as Becky, the crush-turned-wife of Dante Hicks. As she mentioned in the making of documentary, Back to the Well, the donkey show sequence was what made her decide to appear in the movie. In May of the same year, Dawson, an avid comic book fan, co-created the comic book miniseries Occult Crimes Taskforce. She was at the 2007 Comic-Con to promote her new comic book miniseries. In 2007, Dawson co-starred with former Rent alum Tracie Thoms in the Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's throwback movie Death Proof. In 2007, Dawson teamed up with friend Talia Lugacy, whom she met at the Lee Strasberg Academy, to produce and star in Descent. On July 7, 2007 Dawson presented at the American leg of Live Earth. Dawson dated former Sex and the City star Jason Lewis for two years. They lived together in Los Angeles until they separated in November 2006. She has also been rumored to have dated Dawson's Creek star Joshua Jackson. For her 27th birthday party, she asked Guns N' Roses to perform. At the event, Axl Rose and Tommy Hilfiger got into a physical altercation which garnered some press attention.Dawson is involved with the Lower East Side Girls Club and supports other charities such as environmental group Global Cool, the ONE Campaign, Oxfam, Amnesty International, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, Stay Close.org (a poster and public service ad campaign for PFLAG where she is featured with her uncle Frank Jump) International Rescue Committee, Voto Latino, and she participated in the Vagina Monologues. |
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