Background and career
Rosario Isabel Dawson (born May 9, 1979) is an American actress and activist. She made her feature-film debut in the 1995 independent drama Kids. Her subsequent film roles include He Got Game (1998), Josie and the Pussycats (2001), 25th Hour (2002), Men in Black II (2002), The Rundown (2003), Rent (2005), Sin City (2005), Clerks II (2006), Death Proof (2007), Seven Pounds (2008), Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), Unstoppable (2010), Zookeeper (2011), Trance (2013), Top Five (2014), Zombieland: Double Tap (2019), Clerks 3 (2022), and Haunted Mansion (2023). Dawson has provided voice-over work for Disney/Marvel Comics, and Skydance Corporation/DC Comics/Nickelodeon. She is also recognized for her portrayal of the live-action Ahsoka Tano in the Star Wars franchise. Dawson had several roles in film and television adaptations of comic books. These include Gail in Sin City (2005) and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014), Claire Temple in five television series of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (2015–2018), and providing the voices of Diana Prince / Wonder Woman in the DC Animated Movie Universe and Space Jam: A New Legacy and Barbara Gordon / Batgirl in The Lego Batman Movie. In 2021, she had a recurring role in the Dwayne Johnson autobiographical comedy series Young Rock and a main role in the Hulu miniseries Dopesick.
Rosario Isabel Dawson was born on May 9, 1979, in New York City. Her mother, Isabel Celeste, is of Puerto Rican, Cuban, ancestry. Isabel was 17 years old when Rosario was born; she never married Rosario's biological father, Patrick C. Harris. When Dawson was a year old, Isabel married Greg Dawson, a construction worker. Isabel and Greg moved into a reclaimed building on East 13th Street in Alphabet City, Manhattan after being approved as members of an affordable housing plan. The family later moved to Garland, Texas.
As a child, Dawson made a brief appearance on Sesame Street. At the age of 15, she was discovered on her front-porch step by photographer Larry Clark and Harmony Korine, with Korine deciding that she was perfect for a part he had written in his screenplay for the controversial 1995 film Kids. She went on to star in varied roles in independent films and blockbusters, such as He Got Game, Men in Black II, and Rent. In 1998, Dawson provided an introductory voice-over for the remixed version of Prince's single "1999". The voice-over was a commentary on the state of the world in the next to last year before the new millennium. The following 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 introduction and a brief interlude towards the end. In 2001, she appeared in the film Josie and the Pussycats as band member Valerie Brown, and had a role in Chelsea Walls, the directorial debut of Ethan Hawke.
Dawson starred opposite Edward Norton in the Spike Lee drama 25th Hour (2002). In the same year, her role of Laura Vasquez in the blockbuster Men in Black II proved to be a turning point in her career.
She played a supporting role in 2003 action comedy The Rundown, also known as Welcome to the Jungle, opposite Dwayne Johnson, Sean William Scott, and Christopher Walken, which was received well, but failed commercially. In Oliver Stone's 2004 film Alexander, she portrayed Roxana, the wife of Alexander the Great. The film had a mixed reception and underperformed financially. A controversial nude scene depicted Alexander's attempted rape of Roxana, her resistance, and a subsequent sexual encounter after a gift offering. In 2005, Dawson made her stage debut as Julia in the Public Theater's "Shakespeare in the Park" revival of the musical Two Gentlemen of Verona. In the film adaptation of the popular musical Rent in 2005, she played exotic dancer Mimi Marquez, replacing Daphne Rubin-Vega, who was pregnant and unable to play the part. For her role in Rent, Dawson won the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture. She also appeared in the adaptation of the graphic novel Sin City, co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, portraying Gail, a prostitute-dominatrix. Also that year, she appeared in a deleted scene in the Rob Zombie film The Devil's Rejects. The scene was included in the deleted scenes on the DVD release.
She starred as Becky in Clerks II (2006). In Back to the Well, a documentary about the making of the series, she stated that the donkey show sequence was what made her decide to take the role. In May of the same year, Dawson co-created and co-wrote the comic-book miniseries Occult Crimes Taskforce. She was at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con to promote the comic. She co-starred with former Rent alumna Tracie Thoms in the Quentin Tarantino throwback film Death Proof in 2007, part of the Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature Grindhouse. She produced and starred in Descent alongside friend Talia Lugacy, whom she met at the Lee Strasberg Academy. 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 Eagle Eye, produced by Steven Spielberg. Beginning in August, she starred in Gemini Division, an online science-fiction series. In the animated series Afterworld, she voiced Officer Delondre Baines. On January 17, 2009, Dawson hosted Saturday Night Live. Later in the year, she voiced Artemis of Bana-Mighdall in the animated film Wonder Woman. 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 films Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief as Persephone, and Unstoppable as railway yardmaster Connie Hooper. In 2013, she appeared in the independent film Gimme Shelter. Also in 2013, Dawson appeared in Danny Boyle's critically acclaimed psychological thriller Trance opposite James McAvoy. In the film, Dawson's full nudity, including a shaved vulva, was, according to her, crucial for the role and generated considerable attention and discussion. She appeared in Top Five in 2014, for which she was nominated for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in a Comedy. The following year, she reprised her role as Gail in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
