ROSARIO DAWSON RELISHING LEAD ROLE
NEW YORK — Rosario Dawson has graced both the big and small screens, in everything from dramas to comedies to Marvel superhero projects, yet she’s rarely been cast as the lead in a project.
That has changed with her USA series “Briarpatch,” where she plays fashionable political fixer Allegra Dill, who returns home to her Texas border town following the bombing death of her police officer sister. She’s turning over all stones, attempting to solve the murder in the quirky gumshoe drama.
Dawson has consistently stayed busy both on Hollywood sets and political stages with former Democratic presidential candidate and current boyfriend U.S. Sen. Cory Booker. However, she calls this her toughest role to date, balancing the strenuous physical challenges of the role with her personal challenges as her father battles pancreatic cancer.
“It just was so interesting, vacillating between this incredibly raw emotional experience with my dad and then playing this character who is trying to figure out how to deal with her grief and even appreciating her grief because she just lived such a hard life,” said Dawson. “I’ve just never had so many of all of my faculties and energies being pulled out at once.”
The Associated Press spoke with Dawson. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity.
What’s this role been like for you as the star of the series?
I got to see all these different things, not just the intensity of the work and the rigor that’s demanded, but really also the opportunity to be there every single day. There’s so much of so many films and projects that I’ve worked on that I missed because I wasn’t on set.
You’ve always been vocal about representation, and even though streaming services have allowed for more diversity, it’s doesn’t seem to reflect that in awards shows like the Oscars.
The gatekeepers of culture have looked in a very particular way for a really long time, and the reality is they still do. They had a very particular strong hold on what that content would look like. But now with streaming services, there’s demand, and they’re starving for as much content as possible. So I think the financial aspect has definitely piqued people’s interest
to be more inclusive and more representative.
This is the 15th anniversary of Voto Latino, your voter mobilization organization, and you’re in a relationship with a former presidential candidate. Do you know who you’ll support now?
This year, and that’s something Cory and I talk about actually quite a lot, is just how critical ... it is to have representation that’s actually representative of this nation in Congress and in the Senate. And so for me, that’s probably my biggest focus now that he’s no longer the front-runner that I can support in the presidential race. But for me, more — not more than that — but I think, in equal terms, but in a sense more because it only happens every 10 years, is the census. That is something that is, I think, really, really critical . ... So that’s something that I’m really pushing for.