The actress Rosario Dawson once surprised many people by revealing she had a nerdy side after mentioning in an interview with Conan O’Brien that she is a huge Trekkie (aka a fan of Star Trek). Sci-fi fan Dawson also once said she really wanted a role in a Star Wars film. She has never starred in Star Trek, but she has gotten to wield a lightsaber playing a Jedi in the Star Wars series, which has been nothing but good for her nerd credibility. But how does someone go from being a Star Wars fan to playing the lead role in a Star Wars TV show?

Born in New York City in 1979, Rosario Dawson had little experience on screen as a child, appearing briefly in an episode of Sesame Street, but she didn’t even have to go to acting school before she was discovered at the age of 15 on the steps of her home by director Larry Clark and screenwriter Harmony Korine (future director of experimental indie films like Spring Breakers) who thought Dawson would be perfect for the part of Ruby in a film they were working on called Kids (1995).

Kids was a coming-of-age drama that was not only Dawson’s feature film acting debut but also the debut of actors Leo Fitzpatrick, Justin Pierce and Chloë Sevigny. The film about New York City teenagers engaging in a litany of drug and sex-filled debauchery over the course of a single day was financially successful but also one of the most controversial films of the nineties. The MPAA even wanted to rate it NC-17, although beyond its gritty content, its artistic merit was also debated hotly among film critics.

Rosario Dawson would go on to star in Spike Lee’s sports drama He Got Game (1998) starring Denzel Washington, as well as Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan’s musical satire Josie and the Pussycats (2001) based on the Archie comic, with Dawson playing Valerie opposite Rachel Leigh Cook’s Josie and Tara Reid’s Melody. It was not well-received upon its initial release but it has enjoyed cult success. Dawson’s first major box office success, as well as her first major foray into sci-fi, was Men in Black II (2002), in which Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones returned as Agent J and Agent K and Dawson plays an important character with a connection to the aliens.

Dawson’s first commercial hit was shortly followed by one of the biggest commercial bombs in film history, that other sci-fi comedy The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002). But Dawson’s career was unfazed by that experience because she soon reunited with Spike Lee for his drama 25th Hour (2002) starring Edward Norton as a man who has 24 hours left of freedom before going to prison for 7 years, and the next year Dawson starred in Billy Ray’s critically acclaimed biodrama Shattered Glass (2003) alongside Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard, Chloë Sevigny and Steve Zahn. But another major hit also came her way when she starred in the critically and commercially successful neo-noir anthology film Sin City (2005) based on the Frank Miller comic, with Miller also directing and producing the film alongside Robert Rodriguez. Dawson always chose films with great ensembles but this was one of the most impressive, with such actors as Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Benicio del Toro, Elijah Wood, Mickey Rourke and many others.

Dawson would later win a Satellite Award for her role as Mimi Marquez in Rent (2005), she would join Kevin Smith’s well-received 2006 sequel to Clerks as Becky (a role she reprised for Clerks III in 2022), and she reunited with producer Robert Rodriguez for the 2007 double feature Grindhouse, playing one of the women being pursued on the road by a psychopathic stunt driver played by Kurt Russell in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof.

Next Dawson played an Air Force agent opposite Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan in D.J. Caruso’s Eagle Eye (2007), she reunited with Will Smith in the 2008 drama Seven Pounds, she played Persephone the goddess of spring in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), she starred opposite Denzel Washington and Chris Pine in Tony Scott’s Unstoppable (2010) and she played a veterinarian named Kate opposite Kevin James in the critically panned but commercially successful Happy Madison comedy Zookeeper (2011). But among her best films was Danny Boyle’s trippy but stylish 2013 psychological thriller Trance starring James McAvoy as an auctioneer, Vincent Cassel as an art thief and Dawson as a hypnotist who gets entangled in the two’s web of deceit in unexpected ways.

After Trance, Dawson struck gold again playing the journalist assigned to interview Chris Rock’s Andre Allen in the critically acclaimed film festival darling Top Five (2014) which was written and directed by Rock and featured a large ensemble that included many of Rock’s comedian friends.

Rosario Dawson also played a number of animated characters throughout her career. She voiced Artemis in Warner Bros. Animation’s Wonder Woman (2009) and later voiced Wonder Woman herself in Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015), reprising the role in Justice League vs. Teen Titans (2016), Justice League Dark (2017), The Death of Superman (2018), Reign of the Supermen (2019), Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (2019), Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020) and Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021). Plus she provided her voice for the films Tinker Bell and the Legend of the Never Beast (2015), Ratchet & Clank (2016) and The Lego Batman Movie (2017), not playing Wonder Woman but playing Batgirl, in addition to the animated television series Robot Chicken, Elena of Avalor, The Last Kids of Earth and It’s Pony.

Speaking of television, in addition to her many film roles, Dawson has made a lot of appearances on the small screen. Her first main role was in the 50-episode 2008 sci-fi web series Gemini Division, and she followed that up by joining the Marvel universe in the recurring role of a nurse named Claire Temple in the Netflix shows Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Defenders. She also had a recurring role as the love interest of Yael Grobglas in the CW telenovela satire Jane the Virgin, she starred in Hulu’s Emmy-winning miniseries Dopesick and she played the live-action version of Jedi Rebel Ahsoka Tano in the Star Wars TV shows The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett before receiving her own show Ahsoka, which is about to premiere on Disney+.

Currently Rosario Dawson can be seen in the Disney film Haunted Mansion (2023) based on the theme park attraction of the same name and directed by Justin Simien (Dear White People) with a screenplay by Parks and Recreation writer and frequent Paul Feig collaborator Katie Dippold and co-starring Lakeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Dan Levy, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jared Leto. A lot of talent involved in that movie but based on early reviews, the scariest thing about it is how bad it is. As much as I love Rosario Dawson, I’ll most likely be skipping that one. But I’m really looking forward to seeing her in Ahsoka. I’ve been binge-watching the TV series Star Wars Rebels on Disney+ in preparation because many of the characters from that show are making their live-action debut in Ahsoka. And based on Rosario Dawson’s previous appearances in the Star Wars universe as well as her immense acting talent, I already know she will kill it in the title role.