Rosario Dawson

Rosario Dawson Bio

Rosario Dawson was born on May 9, 1979. Rosario is an American actress and singer. She has appeared in films such as Men in Black II, Sin City, Clerks II, Rent, Death Proof, The Rundown, Eagle Eye, and Seven Pounds.

Dawson was born in New York City. Her parents were 15 years old when she was born, and her biological father left the family when she was one year old. Her mother, Isabel, is a plumber of Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban descent who later remarried to Greg Dawson, a construction worker of Native American (Apache-Seminole) and Irish descent. Dawson has one younger brother, Clay (b. 1983). 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, in order to turn the building into a squat in which 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." Her parents divorced while she was in elementary school.

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 with praise 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. 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.

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 Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief as Persephone.