Rosario Dawson
Death Proof

Born in New York, Rosario Dawson was discovered in her neighbourhood as a teenager by filmmaker Larry Clark. He cast her in his controversial Sundance and Cannes hit Kids. Since then, Dawson has starred or taken part in a number of diverse features, balancing commercial fare such as Josie and the Pussycats, Men In Black 2 and The Adventures of Pluto Nash; with lower-budget projects such as Spike Lee’s 25th Hour and Ed Burns’ Sidewalks of New York. After her role in the acclaimed 2005 movie transfer of the Broadway hit Rent, Dawson was last seen in Kevin Smith’s Clerks 2 and will next appear in John Madden’s Elmore Leonard adaptation Killshot, in which she appears alongside Mickey Rourke and Diane Lane. The actress recently completed producing and starring in the thriller Descent, for director Talia Lugacy, and after reprising her role as Gail in the long-awaited, Frank Miller-written Sin City 2, Dawson is developing a film version of her own graphic novel, The OCT (Occult Crimes Taskforce). In Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof she plays Abernathy, a single mother and make-up artist working on a new Lindsay Lohan movie, who takes advantage of a break in shooting to hook up with some friends from the set and then go and meet an old friend at the airport, a stuntwoman named Zoë.

How did you get the role of Abernathy? Did you audition?

Oh yeah. I got the script and I flew down to Austin, Texas. I actually met Sydney [Poitier] for the first time on that plane ride. I auditioned for Quentin with Robert there, and it was really fun. He was really into it, but afterwards he continued looking, and I was really disappointed by that, because I really wanted to work with him, and just the idea of not having impressed him enough was crazy to me. I’ve talked to him since about it, and he was like, ‘No, you were really great, but it really meant a lot to me that you came back in’ – because I asked for a second audition. I flew to New York for it and I asked Tracie [Thoms] to come with me, and we auditioned together. It was great, because she had read for him before and it was between her and another girl. They were really interested but they hadn’t fully made their decision with her either. So we had nothing to lose. We’d already gone in, we’d already auditioned, we were like, “If I don’t get the part, whatever, but at least I want to know when I walk out the door that I gave them 150 per cent, so they have no doubt at all about me.”

So what did you do?

We auditioned our asses off. We were selling ourselves so hard; Quentin was like, “Oh my God, I feel like I’m watching the movie!” And we were like, “THAT’S THE POINT!” (Laughs) It was literally the song and dance that sometimes you’ve got to do, and which I haven’t done for years. Except, actually, for Robert Rodriguez, because I did that exact same thing for Sin City. And it was really interesting to do that, just really being like, (singing) “Hire meeeeeeee! Please-please-pleeeeeeeease…!” There were eight female roles in this movie and Quentin would not have been death proof if he hadn’t hired me for one of them. (Laughs) It would have been a really dangerous situation for him. So it worked out very nicely in his favour, I have to say.

Was it always the part of Abernathy you were reading for?

It was always Abernathy. Rose McGowan had read for Abernathy, and I think even Sydney. I think he read pretty much everyone for Abernathy, and he always wanted me to play that role. We talked about it. He was like, “I’ve seen you do Kim and I’ve seen you do Jungle Julia. I know you can play those kinds of character. I’ve seen you be badass and bitchy and strong all the time. But I want to see you like this: I want to see you playing a more demure character.” And he’s right; Abernathy is like the classic female character in those horror movies where she’s a little bit more conservative and a little bit more reserved than her friends. She’s recently divorced; she has a baby, and she’s very much more conservative than her girlfriends. They’re all talking about set romances and flings, and they get into quite a lot of detail. The girl whose boyfriend likes to watch her pee and my character is like, “This is so not who I am at all!” (Laughs) And to see that character go to the places she goes, I think, is really interesting and fun. Because you can’t help but watch a film like Death Proof and try to figure out who’s going to fold, who’s going to survive and who’s going to not, who’s got the mettle and who doesn’t. And it’s nice to see that the reasons that make her so conservative are the same reasons she’s so badass at the end. She’s like, “I’m a mother and someone like Stuntman Mike makes it a very dangerous world for my kids. So he needs to be taken out. Period. End of story.” When she makes that decision there’s no hesitation, and I think that’s a really good thing.

Is it important to you to have a certain kind of director? As well as Quentin and Robert, you’ve also worked with Kevin Smith…

…And Rob Zombie! I just finished doing a voice on his animated feature, The Haunted House of El Superbeasto, with Paul Giamatti. It was while he was doing his fake trailer for Werewolves Of The SS, and he was like, “I’ve got Nic Cage and he’s going to come in and it’s going to be really cool. We’re doing this crazy-ass trailer with, like, Hitler…” And I was like, “What???” It was really, really random and weird. And I thought about it then: there’s a similarity, definitely, between all these different guys, and it’s the passion. You know when you walk into their house there’s going to be movie memorabilia everywhere. These are the kind of guys who would be going to Comic Con anyway. These are the people who are so super-geeked out on the information they know… It’s daunting, actually, the vastness of their intelligence, and now their influence on film.

What do you mean by that?

Because it’s not just an appreciation of film, it’s not them just going, “OK, I know all the trivia, now I’m going to just go and make a movie…” because that doesn’t necessarily translate. I’ve met a lot of geeks who can talk the talk but can’t walk the walk, and these are guys who definitely can. And it’s really interesting to see someone who’s thought, “Wow, I have such an appreciation of film, I’ve put it into my body and I’ve filtered it through my talent to bring out something new for people.” Rob Zombie’s film The Devil's Rejects could easily have come out in the 70s. It’s shot so beautifully, it’s shot so perfectly, the music’s really great, the acting’s incredible: I think it’s a great film. It stands very well on its own. Quentin’s film Death Proof, Robert’s film Planet Terror, they’re phenomenal, but they also have that twist of being 2007. Quentin wanted to make homage to those great car-chase scenes and films that he’s always seen, but he wanted to make it all that much better without cheating. He didn’t want CG, he didn’t want special effects, he didn’t want to look at a film like Bullitt and be like, “OK, I was only able to achieve the energy of that, because I cheated.” He didn’t want that at all, he wanted to have great stunt people and really recognise what they can do. It was incredible to watch. It’s a great gear head movie it’s a total homage to that type of filmmaking. It’s definitely the 2007 version because you’ve got strong women. We’re not just topless and being slashed up in the background, we run the show. And it’s phenomenal to be able to have that, with great dialogue, great characters, great relationships and great action.

How important is it to Quentin to have these empowering female roles?

I think it’s hugely important for him. He grew up in a matriarchal household in a single-parent home – his mom raised him. And he’s watched all these different movies and he loves all these crazy cheerleader/slasher films. You know, Raquel Welch dancing round being badass on roller-skates: he loves all that. He definitely loves women and their beauty, so there’s going to be a close-up of Sydney’s butt because why not? But it’s not exploitative, where it doesn’t have a balance. What’s specifically beautiful about it is that you don’t just have one ideal beauty, one woman where we focus on her boobs or whatever. We have eight different women who are all different sizes, shapes, colours and ages in this movie, fully representing what it is to be a dynamic, great woman on screen. It’s a dream come true for an actor to be able to do this, to have all the action, have all the fun.

How was it to work with Kurt Russell?

Watching Kurt Russell on the dailies – that was acting 101. We really invested a lot as actors in this process. As much as it seems like one of those throwaway movies it’s very much not. Quentin does not start shooting until he has a full and final draft of a script. He’s very different from Robert. Robert will start with a concept and say; “We’ll finish the script later. As we’re shooting we’ll figure it out.” (Laughs) Quentin’s like, “I’m not even going to show it to anyone until that last period is on there and all the I’s are dotted and all the T’s are crossed. It’s not a skeleton; it’s not a blueprint. But having said that, he’s one of the few people I’ve seen who, as controlling as he can be, really allows people to contribute something. He’d be inspired all the time.

The end scene really plays well with audiences, and people have been cheering. Did you really kick Kurt Russell’s ass?

Hell yeah! It was really fun, actually. Kurt’s done a lot of fight scenes, and he was like, “After doing this for so many years I know I’m going to get hit”, the actors sometimes hit you. Stunt people are trained to do it, but actors are not. And neither Tracie nor I punched him as much it looks. He sold those punches really well. The only person who did hit him was Zoë, ironically enough! But kicking Snake Plissken’s ass, honestly, was pretty damn cool. I remember watching Fight Club and coming out wanting to be Brad Pitt – and to watch this movie and feel that same exact feeling coming from the women is really, really cool. I’m very excited for women to see this movie, because as much as it might seem like a violent, sexploitative thing, I think it’s going to be quite a rush for them, quite a ride, and I think it’s going to be a great date movie for that reason!

Death Proof
interviews
Quentin Tarantino
Kurt Russell
Zoe Bell

Death Proof
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