Rosario Dawson
By on
January 18th, 2009
Rosario Dawson is an actress and singer of Puerto Rican and Cuban heritage. She is best known for her roles in the films Clerks II, Sin City, Rent, Death Proof, 25th Hour, Clerks II, Men in Black 2, Shattered Glass, Descent and, more recently, Seven Pounds. She’s earned a reputation for being likable, hardworking, and multitalented.
Rosario Dawson was born May 9, 1979, in New York City, the daughter of Isabel, a plumber of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, and Greg Dawson, a construction worker of Native American and Irish descent. Dawson moved to an abandoned building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, when she was six, with her brother Clay and parents Greg and Isabelle. Their rundown tenement lacked utilities like water, heating and electric and came with a gaping hole in the floor and a door of erected from moldy firewood. Every day, she and her mother hoisted buckets of water captured from a nearby fire hydrant up four stories to their dingy apartment; water was warm ed on the stove for baths, and when it came time to “flush” the toilet, well, the buckets proved to be their only plumbing. Although Rosario’s parents separated when she was still young, they continued to live in the same building, allowing Rosario and her brother to remain close to them.
Dawson cites this when explaining how she learned “if you wanted something better, you had to do it yourself.” She grew up surrounded by friends and family members who were HIV-positive.
Rosario Dawson attended an alternative school in downtown Manhattan, where she harbored aspirations of one day becoming a marine biologist. When she reached age 15, however, Dawson’s career plans unexpectedly changed. Just outside her tenement was where she was discovered. Director Larry Clark was knee deep in a casting call for an upcoming flick, but he wanted performers from the streets, rather than hiring Hollywood poseurs. He found Dawson and fell in love with her exotic beauty, casting her as the bold, sexually promiscuous Ruby in what would be one of 1995’s most acclaimed and derided films, Kids. Kids went on to become a controversial hit, and Rosario opted out of her college plans, choosing instead to attend the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
The training Rosario Dawson received at the Strasberg Institute complemented the publicity that Kids had earned her, and it wasn’t long before she received her second casting call, this time from Spike Lee for his 1998 film, He Got Game. That same year she appeared in Side Streets, which features a series of vignettes depicting life throughout New York City.
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 Rent, He Got Game and Men in Black II. 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.
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 starred as “Naturelle,” the love interest of a convicted drug dealer played by Edward Norton, in the 2002 Spike Lee film drama, 25th Hour.
In 2004, Dawson appeared in Oliver Stone’s Alexander as the bride of Alexander the Great, which also featured her in a fully nude/sex scene. In August-September 2005, Dawson appeared on stage as Julia in the Public Theater’s “Shakespeare in the Park” revival of Two Gentlemen of Verona.
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 and unable to play the part. She also appeared in the adaptation of the graphic novel Sin City, where she played a prostitute-dominatrix.
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 throwback movie Death Proof, part of the Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature Grind House.
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.
On June 26, 2008, it was announced that Dawson will play Artemis in the upcoming animated Wonder Woman film.
Starting on August 18, 2008, Dawson starred in Gemini Division, an online-based TV series.
In 2008, Dawson starred with Will Smith in Seven Pounds. She played the dying Emily Posa whose heart was failing. The movie got poor reviews from most critics, but IMDB rated it a 7.5 out of 10 with 10,501 votes as of January 4, 2009. On January 17, 2009, Dawson hosted Saturday Night Live.
About her personal life, 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. In December 2008, Dawson confirmed on the Tonight Show that she had been dating an international DJ that she met at a French cafe.
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. She attended both the Democratic National Convention as well as the Republican National Convention in 2008. In October 2008, Dawson became a spokesperson for TripAdvisor.com’s philanthropy program, More Than Footprints, involving Conservation International, Doctors Without Borders, National Geographic Society, The Nature Conservancy, and Save The Children. Also in October 2008, she lent her voice to the RESPECT! Campaign, a movement aimed at preventing domestic violence. She recorded a voice message for the Giverespect.org Web site stressing the importance of respect in helping stop domestic violence.
Filmography
* Kids (1995)
* He Got Game (1998)
* Side Streets (1998)
* Light It Up (1999)
* Down to You (2000)
* King of the Jungle (2000)
* Sidewalks of New York (2001)
* Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
* Chelsea Walls (2001)
* Ash Wednesday (2002)
* Men in Black II (2002)
* The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)
* 25th Hour (2002)
* The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest (2002)
* Love in the Time of Money (2002)
* V-Day: Until the Violence Stops (2003) (documentary)
* This Girl’s Life (2003)
* Shattered Glass (2003)
* The Rundown (2003)
* Alexander (2004)
* This Revolution (2004)
* Sin City (2005)
* Rent (2005)
* Clerks II (2006)
* A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006)
* Grindhouse: Death Proof (2007)
* Descent (2007)
* Explicit Ills (2008)
* Eagle Eye (2008)
* Seven Pounds (2008)
Upcoming:
* Killshot (2009) (completed)
* The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009)[26] (post-production)
* Wonder Woman (2009) (post-production)
* Sin City 2 (2010) (pre-production)
Awards and nominations
* ALMA Awards
* 2006, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture (Rent) Nominated
* American Black Film Festival
* 2004, Rising Star Award Won
* Black Movie Awards
* 2006, Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Rent) Nominated
* Black Reel Awards
* 2006, Best Actress (Rent) Nominated
* 2006, Best Ensemble (Rent) Nominated
* 2006, Best Supporting Actress (Sin City) Nominated
* 2003, Best Supporting Actress (25th Hour) Nominated
* 2000, Best Actress (Light It Up) Nominated
* Broadcast Film Critics
* 2006, Best Song (Rent) “Seasons of Love” Nominated
* Image Awards
* 2006, Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture (Rent) Nominated
* 2000, Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture (Light It Up) Nominated
* MTV Movie Awards
* 2006, Best Kiss (Sin City) Nominated
Rosario Dawson: We are one at Inaugural Welcome Event at the Lincoln Memorial January 18, 2009
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