Who

Rosario Dawson is the tough talking, multiethnic actress best known for her roles in Kids, Rent, He Got Game, and Sin City.

Backstory

Raised on the Lower East Side—her parents were squatters—the Puerto Rican/Cuban/Irish/African-American/Native-American Dawson landed her big break at the age of 15, when director Larry Clark famously plucked her off an East Village stoop and put her in his gritty 1995 film Kids. Dawson enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Institute after Kids came out, and was soon cast in Spike Lee's He Got Game. Following appearances in a couple of small indie films, she scored her first big-budget role in 2001 with Josie and the Pussycats. Although the film bombed at the box office, it upped Dawsons's profile dramatically and helped her land parts in major studio flicks like Men in Black II and Alexander. More recently, she's veered towards both macabre and indie fare, appearing in pics like Sin City, Kevin Smith's Clerks II, and Death Proof.

Of note

Dawson's typically been cast as, essentially, herself—an earthy, streetwise, urban tough girl, albeit a much better-looking one than you'd find at the corner deli. And although she's never shied away from playing grim characters, her recent roles have gotten downright disturbing. Dawson starred in Quentin Tarantino's gore-fest Grindhouse, and played a woman who took brutal revenge after being raped by a racist frat guy in Descent, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007. Dawson has apparently found her niche—most of her upcoming films (like Poor Things and Eagle Eye) center around murder, terrorism, and/or assassinations.

On the side

She helped create a comic book, The Occult Crimes Taskforce, in 2006. Dawson based the heroine, detective Sophie Ortiz, on herself.

Pet causes

Given that she grew up in an East Village squat, it's no surprise that Dawson's a hard-core lefty. She was arrested (while wearing a handkerchief and a mask covering her face, no less) for protesting near the Republican National Convention in 2004.

Personal

Dawson dated Jay-Z in her late teens. More recently, she spent several years dating Jason Lewis (of Sex and the City fame), but they split in November 2006. Since then, she's reportedly dated another SatC alum, Andrea Boccaletti (who played an underwear model on the HBO show), and photographer Stephen Shaw. In 2005, she became bicoastal, and now splits her time between Los Angeles and New York.