Born on May 9, 1979, in New York City, actress Rosario Dawson was discovered at age 15 and cast in the edgy 1995 flick Kids, about teens indulging in sex and drugs. She's gone on to star in a wide spectrum of independent and feature films, including Sin City, Rent and Grindhouse. Also an outspoken activist for various causes, Dawson co-founded Voto Latino to encourage Latinos to register and vote.

Her mother, Isabel Celeste, is of Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican ancestry. Isabel was 16 or 17 years old when Rosario was born; she never married Rosario's biological father, Patrick C. Harris. When Rosario was a year old, her mother married Greg Dawson, a construction worker. Isabel and Greg moved into a reclaimed building on 544 East 13th Street after being approved as members of an affordable housing plan. The family later moved to Texas

As a child, Dawson made a brief appearance on Sesame Street. At the age of 15, she was discovered on her front-porch step by photographer Larry Clark and Harmony Korine, with Korine deciding that she was perfect for a part he had written in his screenplay for the controversial 1995 film Kids. She went on to star in varied roles, including independent films and blockbusters such as Rent, He Got Game, and Men in Black II.

In 1998, Dawson provided an introductory voice-over for the remixed version of Prince’s single “1999”. The voice-over was a commentary on the state of the world in the next to last year before the new millennium. The following 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 introduction and a brief interlude towards the end.

Dawson’s unique multicultural background and acting talent, along with training from the Lee Strasberg Institute, helped prevent her from being typecast in Hollywood. Three years after Kids, Dawson appeared in Spike Lee's He Got Game (1998), with Denzel Washington and basketball star Ray Allen, and she followed in 2001 with a prominent role in Josie and the Pussycats, based on the popular 1970s cartoon of the same name.

In 2008, Dawson starred with Will Smith in Seven Pounds and in Eagle Eye, produced by Steven Spielberg. Beginning in August, she starred in Gemini Division, an online science-fiction series. In the computer-animated series Afterworld, she voiced Officer Delondre Baines. On January 17, 2009, Dawson hosted Saturday Night Live. Later in the year, she voiced Artemis of Bana-Mighdall in the animated film Wonder Woman.

In 2009, Dawson performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. In 2009, Dawson also voiced the character of Velvet Von Black in Rob Zombie's animated feature, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto. 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 movies Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, as Persephone, and Unstoppable, as railway yardmaster Connie. In 2013, she appeared in the independent film Gimme Shelter. The following year, she reprised her role as Gail in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. In 2015, she played Claire Temple in the Netflix web television series Daredevil, a role which she reprised in Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. Dawson's likeness was also used in the Jessica Jones tie-in comic as her character on both shows. Dawson has continued this role in 2017 in Iron Fist and The Defenders.

She appeared in Top Five in 2014, for which she was nominated for the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in a Comedy. In 2018, she played the female lead role in the Netflix movie, Krystal. In 2020, she was cast as the Star Wars character Ahsoka Tano in the second season of The Mandalorian on Disney+ and reprised her role in The Book of Boba Fett. She will also reprise the role in the spinoff limited series, Ahsoka.

Dawson was arrested in 2004, while protesting against President George W. Bush.

Dawson endorsed Barack Obama for re-election in 2012, and Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 Democratic Party primaries. On April 15, 2016, Dawson was among the protesters arrested during Democracy Spring in Washington, DC.

In mid-2019, Dawson endorsed her boyfriend Cory Booker in the 2020 presidential election. Booker ended his campaign for president on January 13, 2020. Had she become First Lady of the United States, Dawson said she would have advocated for solutions to youth homelessness. On March 9, 2020, Dawson endorsed the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, whom she had also previously endorsed in his 2016 bid.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosario_Dawson#Early_life

https://www.biography.com/actor/rosario-dawson