"When we meet, I'm interested and I'm curious about what he's doing because he's burning a number from a client. And I'm like, 'Who is this?' and my girlfriend's like, 'That's a drug dealer. Stay away from him.'" -- Rosario Dawson
Rosario Isabel Dawson (born May 9, 1979) is an American actress, singer, and writer. She has appeared in films such as Kids, Men in Black II, 25th Hour, Sin City, Clerks II, Rent, Death Proof, The Rundown, Eagle Eye, Alexander, Seven Pounds, and The Lightning Thief.
"All the times being like, 'Who rented this car and why are we going to this place?' You take the easy route and go, 'Oh, thanks for the champagne. I'll have another.'""He uses his good powers for evil, and that's when it gets to the dangerous side of it.""I didn't even remember it because it kind of came up, and then a week later it said I broke up with him.""I thought my character definitely was very much in love with him and wanted to be with him, but I think at some point they were going to have to draw the line.""I'd love to be the first one to say this, but it automatically turns into - we all have those responsibilities that we ignore because we don't feel like they're ours.""I've noticed a growth in Spike and definitely in myself. I feel like the seeds that he planted in me five years ago have ripened up to a place where I could even tackle this role in the way that I did.""It was funny actually because that was still during the time we were dating. He would get all these calls because supposedly before we broke up, we had already broken up in the trades, in the rags or whatever.""It's like our relationship is always about the other side that isn't the obvious side.""People in Hollywood don't have that much sex, or at least I don't.""They kind of took it out of our hands. We're still able to deal with him on an emotional level.""You can only avoid responsibility for so long. The catalyst ended up being the law coming down and finally saying, 'You guys suspended judgement and that's fine, because we're not.'"
Dawson was born in New York City. Her parents were 15 years old when she was born. Her mother, Isabel, is a plumber of Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban descent, and her father, Greg Dawson, is a construction worker of Native American (Apache-Seminole) and Irish descent. Dawson has one younger brother, Clay (b. 1983). Her parents divorced while she was in elementary school.
When Isabel was 21, she broke into an abandoned building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where she and her husband installed plumbing and electrical wiring, to turn the building into a squat where their two children would grow up. Dawson cites this when explaining how she learned, "If you wanted something better, you had to do it yourself."
As a child, Rosario made a brief appearance on Sesame Street. At the age of 15, she was subsequently "discovered" on her front porch step by photographer Larry Clark and Harmony Korine, where Harmony lauded her as being perfect for a part he had written in his screenplay that would become the controversial 1995 film Kids. She went on to star in varied roles, ranging from independent films to big-budget blockbusters including Rent, He Got Game, and Men in Black II.
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 new 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, in 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 the 2004 Oliver Stone film Alexander, she played the bride of Alexander the Great, which featured her in a fully nude sex scene. In the autumn of 2005, Dawson appeared on stage as Julia in the Public Theater's "Shakespeare in the Park" revival of Two Gentlemen of Verona. It was her first appearance on stage. “That park is so beautiful,” she said of New York's Central Park.
In the film adaptation of the popular musical Rent in 2005, 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, co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller where she played Gail, a prostitute-dominatrix. Also in that year, she 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.
She starred as Becky in 2006's Clerks II, and mentioned in Back to the Well, the making-of documentary, that the donkey show sequence was what made her decide to take the role. 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 the comic. She co-starred with former Rent alum Tracie Thoms in the Quentin Tarantino throwback movie Death Proof in 2007, part of the Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature Grind House. She 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.
In 2008, Dawson starred with Will Smith in Seven Pounds and in the Steven Spielberg produced Eagle Eye. Beginning in August, she starred in Gemini Division, an online-based TV series. In the computer animated series Afterworld she voiced the character Officer Delondre Baines. On January 17, 2009, Dawson hosted Saturday Night Live. Later in the year, she voiced the character of Artemis in the animated Wonder Woman film.
In 2009, Dawson performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
In 2009, Dawson also voiced the character of Velvet Von Black in Rob Zombie's animated feature, The Haunted World Of El Superbeasto
For the Kasabian album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum, she is featured singing on the track, "West Ryder Silver Bullet."
In 2010, she starred in the movie The Lightning Thief as Persephone.
Rosario Dawson is scheduled to appear at the 2010 MTV VMAs on Sept. 12, 2010.
Rosario Dawson is on the cover of GQ Magazine in October 2010.
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. Rosario Dawson Biography - Yahoo! Movies 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 Rosario Dawson on Jimmy Kimmel Live 4-9-07 part1 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), Stay Close :: Pflag International Rescue Committee, and Voto Latino, Rosario Dawson's Charity Work Vidéos MySpaceTV : Rosario Dawson par Global Cool 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 spokesman 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.
