Rosario Dawson Almost Skipped Auditioning for ‘Rent’ Because the Role Freaked Her Out
Actor Rosario Dawson couldn’t have been happier to land her lead role in Rent. Dawson was passionate about the project since first hearing about it. But she was worried that wanting the role so badly might have worked against her favor when pursuing the role.
Rosario Dawson was terrified of auditioning for ‘Rent’
Dawson felt her chances might have been slim to score one of the leading roles in the 2005 feature Rent. The musical film was an adaptation of a famous play of the same name, and was directed by Harry Potter filmmaker Chris Columbus.
Many of the actors who appeared in the play would return for the Columbus feature to reprise their roles in the film. Dawson was one of the few actors who would be a fresh face on the project if she was selected. It was a fact she was well aware of, which added more pressure to the Ahsoka star. In hindsight, she couldn’t believe she summoned the nerve to audition in the first place.
“It was probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. It was like, ‘All right, I’ll try it. I don’t usually get scared about something until I try it and realize, ‘Oh, that was really scary.’ So that was kind of how I approached this, but I was actually really nervous when I went into the audition,” she once said according to Black Film. “It’s one thing to go against some other actors for this part, but I was going against actors who originated these parts.”
Eventually, Dawson became so anxious about the role that she almost skipped her Rent audition entirely.
“I got freaked out because what if my voice broke while I was dancing because I was out of breath or something,” Dawson told The Washington Post.
What made Rosario Dawson believe that she could do ‘Rent’
Despite the competition and her own self-doubts, deep down Dawson felt she was capable of delivering in her Rent performance. The actor always felt she had a natural knack for the theater.
“I just knew I could. I just knew I could. I love singing and I love dancing. I bought my first song when I was six. I’ve always been really flexible. It’s really the only thing I ever wanted to do. I was discovered into acting. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but singing and dancing has always been my dream, my fantasy. Some kids want to be a ballerina, or a princess, but I’ve always wanted to sing and dance,” she said.
Still, Dawson admitted that she always saw doing a musical as more of a pipe dream.
“Because I got into acting and I fell in love with acting and that became my thing and I didn’t grow up seeing a lot of theater. I didn’t see the original production of Rent for that reason. I didn’t have the money to go see it. It wasn’t something that I got into. The only musicals I ever saw were on film,” she said.
It wasn’t until seeing her uncle perform in the musical West Side Story that Dawson felt she was also capable of doing theater work.
Rosario Dawson hopes that her daughter plays her ‘Rent’ character one day
Dawson had a lot in common with her Rent character Mimi. Like Mimi, Dawson grew up in tough conditions in New York.
“We had a big, gaping hole in the middle of the floor when we moved in,” she recalled. “Sheets of plastic on the windows. At first there was no running water, no heat, no electricity. My mother learned to be a plumber and put in all the pipes in our place.”
Because of this, she felt a closer connection for her Rent role than she might have for her other film characters. So much so that she hoped that her daughter would someday inherit her Rent character.
“My daughter has big curly hair; I have fantasies and dreams of her being a Mimi one day,” Dawson once said to Us Weekly. “I think it’s just such a right of passage now at this point. … I grew up in an abandoned building in the Lower East Side so that story in particular really resonates with me.”
