What She Is Known For

Rosario Dawson got her start alongside Chloe Sevigny in Larry Clark’s 1995 film, Kids. By the time 2002 rolled around, she was starring in Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (with Edward Norton and Anna Paquin) and Barry Sonnenfeld’s Men in Black II (with Will Smith and Lara Flynn Boyle), and in 2004 she was cast in Oliver Stone’s Alexander, as was Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie. Rosario always plays her characters with spunk and sex appeal, even in the worst professional situations (such as 2001’s Josie and the Pussycats).

2005 Career Highlight

Rosario hit it big in 2005, starring in two of the year’s most anticipated films: Sin City and Rent. She delivered a hot performance in Sin City, playing a tough-as-nails leader for a group of female vigilantes. In Rent, she was able to help bring the hit Broadway show to the screen and gather rave reviews in the process.

2006 Career Forecast

Sin City 2 and Clerks II are just a couple of the six films Rosario has lined up for 2006. If she plays her Sin City character, Gail, with the same enthusiasm that she brought to the original, we’re in for another dose of streetwise sexiness and femme-fatale attitude. Rosario is riding a wave of previous film success, and she should easily catapult into the public eye when she takes the lead role in Descent.

quote



  "My doll's probably going to kick Barbie's a**, steal her clothes and wind up stealing Ken."

-Rosario Dawson, on the parallels between herself and the doll based on her character from Josie and the Pussycats.



biography



  Rosario Dawson was born May 9, 1979, in New York City. She was raised in a Manhattan tenement building by her Bronx-born mother, a professional vocalist, and her father, who worked in construction. 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.

rosario dawson in kids



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. She was literally cast off the street for the role of Ruby in the 1995 indie production Kids, after director Larry Clark spotted her on the stoop of her apartment building. Kids went on to become a controversial hit, and Dawson opted out of her college plans, choosing instead to attend the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.

The training 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.

Over the course of the next few years, Dawson appeared in three more small-time films: as an honor student held hostage in Light It Up, a pothead in Down to You and a bully in King of the Jungle. Although none of these projects were box-office hits, they provided Dawson with the exposure crucial to a young actress, and the jobs kept coming. Her next role was as bassist Valerie Brown in 2001's feature film, Josie and the Pussycats.

rosario dawson is a pussycat

Despite the slew of publicity Josie and the Pussycats enjoyed preceding its release, the movie was a disappointment both critically and popularly. Nonetheless, the mass marketing of the film translated well for Dawson, who soon found herself on the "hot new faces" lists of entertainment publications throughout the country. Before the end of 2001, she managed to appear in three more movies: Sidewalks of New York, Trigger Happy and Chelsea Walls, an Ethan Hawke production.

Rosario Dawson's career has continued to burgeon throughout 2002. She has demonstrated her versatility as an actress through equally strong performances in a variety of genres, from independent art-house films such as Love In the Time of Money (which like most of the films on her resume, is set in New York) to multi-million dollar blockbusters like Men in Black II and The Adventures of Pluto Nash.

rosario dawson in sin city

Dawson rounded out her resume further with appearances in a number of films in 2002, including the gangster flick Ash Wednesday and Spike Lee's The 25th Hour, wherein she played the girlfriend of a convicted felon. She also appeared in two 2003 films: Shattered Glass and opposite The Rock in Helldorado.

In 2005, Rosario appeared in the cult favorite Sin City and took on her first musical -- the film version of the Broadway hit Rent. In 2006, she was cast in another cult favorite, the Kevin Smith-written and directed flick, Clerks II. Romantically, Rosario Dawson has been linked with Dawson's Creek star Joshua Jackson and Sex and the City actor Jason Lewis. What else do you need to know?