It is officially Rosario Dawson’s birthday here on the east coast! Thank you so much to the fans from all over the world who shared their photos and artwork via flickr, tumblr, facebook, twitter and email. This special video was put together to showcase all the love fans have shown over the years and celebrate Rosario on her special day.The video features the very awesome song “SUPERCOOL” by The Bullitts. Go support and buy their album today!

Some fans wanted to share some notes as well which you’ll find below. Feel free to leave a comment for Rosario on her special day!

From: S.K. Joshi, India

My Dear Ms.Rosario Dawson,

Good morning.I sincerely hope that you are keeping very fine,in good health.Please accept my heartiest wishes on your birthday,on 9th May.
This is one of my countless attempts to reach you,as you have always been my source of inspiration,I’ll be grateful to you,if you please bless me,with your family’s autographed photograph.Though I never got despite my countinous efforts,but I hope that you would not disappoint me,this time.I pray that may God always keep you happy and healthy.

Once again,”HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU !!!!!!!!!!”

                                                       With high regards
                                                             S.K.Joshi

From: Aja

Happy Birthday To My Favorite Person In the World!!

Hey Rosario! Its my second time doing this so I’m trying to make this Birthday Shout Out better then last years… So HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!! I’m happy that you got to spend another year on this earth! You did your thing all this year and I want to see you do it again! Thank you for being one of the biggest inspirations on my life. I LOVE YOU!!!! I hope u have a wonderful birthday and I want all your wishes to come true!

From: Anencio

Happy Birthday Rosario, im definely one your biggest fan. May 9th will also be my one year anniversary for being on twitter. I made one so I can just get a tweet from you and I did. Love your work, you are a great actress, actvist, you have a real kind heart. These are some of the reason why I love you and i call you my “wifey”. Happy birthday Rosario Dawson with much love from me and #TeamRosarioDawson. PS you better every year, you are the most beautiful woman on this earth.

From: Joe Kickass

Happy Birthday gorgeous.

From: Oliver Podobrin

Rosario we are so lucky to have you on the big screen – you are fantastic! May all your whishes come true on this special day.

From: Robert Copeland

Flower of Love

A single golden flower blooms
And as she does fills earthen rooms
With beauty and her sweet perfumes
In countless hearts desire looms.

Never one to wilt or fade
Promise kept, decision made
Like springtime on an April day
The ocean’s waves, late in May.

As pretty as a picture now
One must never wonder how
She sprang from barren earth unplowed
Up higher than the rainbow’s bow.

Just trust that Mother Nature’s wise
Enough to leave behind a prize
Of sunkissed petals, deep brown eyes
Shining truth, devoid of lies.

Untouched by the gardener’s glove
But picked instead by one who does
Believe she came from up above
An earthbound angel, flower of love.

RDC

Happy Birthday!

From: Anonymous

Happy birthday & best of pleasurable flowz & wishes & again simply thanx from the many for simply being you all& all the charitable & other thingz the likes of yourself have done with any& for the many

From: Benjamin Seagroves

Happy Birthday Miss Dawson! I will be 34 on the 9th. I love your work. Keep it up.

GO ARMY

From: Haris

From: John Drew

Hey Rosario, have a very awesome Birthday!!!

From: Thaiz

Feliz aniversário Rosario, que Deus possa iluminar seus caminhos hoje e sempre!!!!

From: Mauro

Buon compleanno  io li compio il 13 di maggio

From: Jerry Ables

Happy Birthday, Rosario, and many more:)

From: R. Jermaine Schex

Happy birthday, Rosario, on Wednesday the 9th! You’re still looking beautiful, and likely will for years to come.

From: Laurence

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROSARIO, I LOVE YOU!!

From: Derek Brandt

Happy early birthday! Mine is on the 2nd! You have the prettiest eyes.But,you get that all the time!

From: Debbie High

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROSARIO!!! YOU’RE AWESOME!!

From: Abby

Happy B-Day Preciosa!! Best wishes to you! May God keep you in that path of good success!!! Your awesome!! Besos..

From: Bobby Jones

happy birthday i know it will be as awsome as you are 

Article Originally posted on Deadline.

Here’s what Rodriguez told MTV about bringing back Rourke and Dawson:

“[Rourke is] all excited to come back, but he’s probably the first one,” Rodriguez told MTV of returning players. “I saw Rosario [Dawson] too. I ran into her for something else, and she’s pumped. They’ve always been excited about doing another one, so that will be fun.”

The protagonist of A Dame to Kill For is Dwight McCarthy, who was played by Clive Owen in Sin City.  However, the first movie combined Books 1, 3, and 4 of Miller’s gritty series of graphic novels (The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill, and That Yellow Bastard, respectively).  Dame is the second book in the series, and Dwight has a different face.  If Owen were to return, the filmmakers could slather him in make-up, but it would probably be easier to simply recast part up until Dwight gets his Owen-face.

Article originally posted on Collider.

Piers Morgan welcomes actress, singer, and writerRosario Dawson for a candid and engaging interview, touching upon everything from politics to the environment, and her enthusiasm for riding trains.

With the fifth annual “National Train Day” rapidly approaching, the event’s official spokesperson details why she often lists the rails as her first choice for transportation:

“It is definitely one of the greener ways of traveling, but it’s also just one of the most beautiful ways of traveling,” says Dawson. “I love the conversations that I have when I’m on a train, I love the view of America that I get to have.”

A veteran of such films as “Seven Pounds,” “Rent,” and “Unstoppable,” the native of New York City says she still takes the subway to this day, admiring its authenticity:

“I’m a New Yorker, and that’s the best thing about New Yorkers. You create New York moments. People like ‘Yo what up Rosario,’ I’m like, ‘Yo wussup,’ and then we move about our way.”

Watch the clip as the 32-year-old speaks about two of her greatest passions, engaging young Latino voters, and “National Train Day.”

Article originally posted on CNN. 

OkayPlayer are reporting that Samuel has recruited “The Wire” duo Idris Elba and Michael K. Williams along with Rosario Dawson, “Breaking Bad” star Giancarlo Esposito and songstress Erykah Badu for a forty-five minute film likely to be a companion piece to his upcoming album, “They Die By Dawn And Other Short Stories.” Elba and Dawson have worked with Samuel before, and their work can be found on The Bullit’s Youtube page. It doesn’t stop there either, with “some more big names” to be added in the near future.

“I’m shooting a Western ‘They Die By Dawn’ at the Melody Ranch Studios in L.A. where they shot ‘Deadwood,’” Samuel previously told ClashMusic. “It’s set in 1890 with every single black actor in Hollywood swagged out cowboy style – Langston, Oklahoma. I am super, super excited.”

Asked about who he admires creatively, Samuel revealed a bit more about inspirations behind his current ambitions, naming “Sergio Leone, who directed ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ and his college roommate buddy music scorer, Ennio Morricone, who gave us those awesome sounds and Western soundtracks. Iconic. I love them. They couldn’t afford massive orchestras so they used speech and sonics as instruments. That, in the end, was far more powerful and effective and distinguished those films and stories.”

A reunion between Elba and Williams, two of the best from “The Wire,” will always have our attention, and coupled with Samuel’s promises of a spaghetti western featuring all black cowboys, we’re highly intrigued. His aforementioned album doesn’t come out until the summer, but here are a few videos of Samuel’s work, including a live in-studio performance at the BBC with Lucy Liu of all people.

Article originally posted on Indie Wire 

Check out this quote on Rosario Dawson from an interview with Jeymes Samuel:

For ‘Supercool’, I’m feeling the tune at the same time as I see a tramp and a trolley. A tramp and a trolley. I see the tramp. I can easily jump into that character as he’s real, in my head. It came about after I was in the studio next to Rosario Dawson. What people don’t know is that Rosario Dawson is ‘swagged out’. I mean she’s just really, really musical. We would have dance-offs in the studio or a youtube battle from 8pm-11am. That particular night, we had a youtube battle from 8.30pm. Rosario wrote down every single clip we did. From that day, we were playing ‘Supercool’. The person the tramp meets is Rosario Dawson. I explained it to her and she straight agreed. Rosario is such a down-to-earth person. She gets an Oyster card and travels by train all the time. The film was totally unrehearsed and we did it all in one take. CBS News and worldstarhiphop.com were all over it: ‘Scavenger arrests Rosario Dawson.’ They really believed it. For me, film and music can be a portal into a train of thought.

Article originally posted on Clash Music.

On Friday, the actress/political activist was in Washington D.C., for the Voto Latino On Series event. Then on Saturday, the “Sin City” star attended the White House Correspondents Dinner. And on Sunday, Dawson hopped on a train from D.C. to New York and spent the entire trip snapping photos of her journey as part of the “See More On A Train Online Contest,” that encourages people to submit their train journeys via photos as part of Amtrak’s 5th Annual National Train Day.”

When she landed in New York on Sunday night, Rosario invited The Huffington Post over for a chat at New York’s Penn Station. We spoke to the talented actress about her work with the non-profit organization Voto Latino (which she co-founded in 2005 with Maria Teresa Kumar), why you wont be reading about her slamming any presidential candidates in the news, and why she isn’t endorsing any candidate for president.

The Huffington Post: There are more than 9 million young Latinos in the United States, but not all of them are voting. Why do you think that is?
Well, it’s a lot of things. From the things that we’re told from them it’s because people don’t ask them — that’s the first thing they say as to why they haven’t voted for the first time. And the second is because they don’t feel like they necessarily have enough information on the issues. They’re paying attention to student loans, they have opinions on healthcare, they’re angered by the conversation around immigration, they’re feeling the backlash of violence that’s going more and more towards Latinos, because of all of the sort of hate speech that’s been used in so many peoples’ politics.

The more I talk to young people, the more I see how incredibly just full on activists they are. Just because they’re not necessarily voting, it doesn’t mean they’re not doing stuff. They’re organizing. They’re marching and they’re using social media to get their points across. [But] getting engaged as a voter really makes you powerful. If you’re at occupy movements or you’re walking in protests, then you need to march to the polls — you need to occupy the voting booth and that’s really going to make sure that you’re voice and your issues are heard.

That’s very interesting. Often times the media just says: “Young people don’t show up to vote” and they leave it at that. 
That’s it, yeah! One of the things we’re really excited about with Voto Latino is that we connect. We have been really great with our messaging and the reason that our organization has grown over all of these years — especially in this economy and with a lot of organizations shutting down — it has been a really amazing thing to see how people have been connecting with our messaging and understanding that when we’re saying ‘it’s your country, represent!’ that we really mean it. We’re really talking to them like they’re Americans and I think that’s the most crucial part — because that’s what they feel like. That’s who they are — including the DREAMers.

They’re like, ‘I’m American, that’s who I am. Why would you want to deport me? I didn’t choose to do this, I was a kid and I’ve been here my whole life. I’ve never been to this other country.’ A lot of the time they don’t even speak the language from the country they came from. We’ve made things about numbers and we’ve really dehumanized and objectified Latinos a lot in our conversations about them. Latino issues are American issues. You go to China, Brazil or India, and they understand that their population is their power. We have the largest and fastest growing demographic in this country and it represents over a trillion dollars worth of money. Why would we want to ostracize that and put that away? There’s nothing to be worried about. If we start working together, this country is going to be in really great shape.

There are some Hollywood actors who have spoken out against presidential candidates. We never hear you doing that. Is that a conscious decision on your part?

Yeah. I remember it was actually really great going to both the Democratic and Republication conventions in the last election. You have all of this stuff that’s said in the media, but when you actually get there and you’re around people, you recognize that there are different ways to think about the American dream, and there are different ways to think about our history and our past. People wanting to fly a confederate flag doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re totally racist — it [may] mean that they recognize their family and where they come from and they don’t want to feel bad about it. They want to be able to say, ‘I’m a good person, I’m willing to move forward, and I don’t want to feel like I have to deny my history to do so.’ Then there are other people going ‘Well, I don’t want to go back to that America, because in that America I didn’t have a voice as a woman or as a person of color.’ And so it’s understandable on their side. We need more diversity of conversation.

A lot of celebs endorse candidates for president. Have you thought about doing that?

No. I’ll vote the way I’m going to vote, but if I’m actually saying I’m serious about your voice being important, then what’s the point of me walking around and knocking on someone’s door and going, ‘OK, I really care about your opinion, but only if it’s exactly like mine?’ That doesn’t really make sense. You know what I mean? And I want to learn and I want to understand where people are coming from, because eventually — that standing president, whoever I’m behind — is not going to be there. Does that mean the next election I’m not going to be interested? I’m not going to vote or not going to care? I’ve already witnessed several presidents in my lifetime and I know I’m going to see several more. And I don’t want to always feel like I have to be behind one person. I’m behind the people.

What is the most important issue for you as a voter?
There are so many right now. I mean, I’m a woman of color in 2012. We’re talking about issues from everything from the war on women’s reproductive health and the economy, which is obviously such a major thing, to access to food, people getting paid fair wages, and the environment is obviously such an alarming situation that we’re not paying the proper attention to. And getting onto wind and solar technology would be so amazing and getting us off this idea of having to have this XL pipeline coming through, or digging for natural gas and destroying our beautiful country — that’s our greatest resource — our people and our land. That’s what we should be investing in.

The people and the land are the biggest things I care about. We should be investing in infrastructure — that’s why I’m doing National Train Day. Why do we not have more high speed train rails? Why are we not paying attention to one of the greenest ways to travel? We could be making incredible railways that could be connecting people and communities, and allowing access to people to be able to do that “staycation” that is so popular right now because the economy is rough. We had 30 million people use the train last year and we can up that. I fly a lot but it’s a really different experience when you’re flying and everything is like a tiny little ant. When you’re actually going through these communities on a train, you really see them. You see the differences in them, you see the areas that are more run down or areas that are more like big cities. And you get to see all of the untouched raw land — like on the train ride over here I saw a deer. You get to see the landscape of the country that you live in. And those are the things that help us be able to connect all of our different kinds of immigration stories.

Article originally posted on Huffington Post.

The fight for the young Hispanic vote is on. With 50,000 Latinos turning 18 every month the stakes are high. NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez takes a look at VotoLatino, one organization using the star power of celebrities like Rosario Dawson and Wilmer Valderrama to get young Latinos to register to vote for this election.

Source: NBC Latino

This past weekend, Dawson — who is set to play labor leader Dolores Huerta in the upcoming Cesar Chavez biopic — addressed a packed conference hall at the University of Southern California during the opening plenary of the Voto Latino Power Summit, an organization dedicated to engaging Latino youth voters and leaders, of which she is a co-founder and chairwoman.

Alongside co-founder Maria Teresa Kumar, the President and CEO of Voto Latino and Huerta, who also participated in the event, Dawson had this to say about playing the civil rights activist in the upcoming film:

“The more I get to know [Huerta], the more I am impressed and a little frightened about making sure that I get it right.”

When Huerta, took to the podium, she told Dawson, “Rosario, I’m glad you’re gonna play me. That’s awesome.”

Source: Huffington Post

A recent study by the William C. Velasquez Institute (WCVI), a policy analysis organization, indicates that the drop in registered Latino voters in 2010 “may diminish the size of Latino voter turnout in November 2012 by more than a million,” according to WCVI President Antonio Gonzalez.

Ahead of that curve — and along with a coalition of several Hispanic organizations working to register Latino voters ahead of November — Voto Latino, an organization dedicated to empowering U.S. Latino youth to organize around the vote, held its first annual conference this weekend in Los Angeles.

Over 300 youth leaders and activists from Washington, D.C., Arizona, Florida, and California, among others, gathered at the University of Southern California (USC) for a two-day conference “on media, leadership and activism.”

“We are thrilled that we are having this power summit,” said Sindy M. Benavides, Vice President of Field Operations and Political Affairs at Voto Latino, to The Huffington Post. “Our goal is to make sure that the students who are coming are getting the tools that they need when it comes to organizing folks to register to vote and then turning out to vote, and making sure that in November, they are at the polls.”

Founded in 2004 by civic leader Maria Teresa Kumar and actress Rosario Dawson, Voto Latino’s first annual Power Summit was sold out.

“Our outreach is organic, it comes directly from the individual and their willingness to really reach out to the community,” Benavides explained on the standing-room only turnout at some panels.

Rocio Martinez, a USC graduate student in the School of Social Work and an organizer with the South Los Angeles neighborhood council said, “This event fits perfectly with how I want to promote and help my community. I want to get as much information and resources as I can to bring back to my community on how to [register to] vote.”

The conference brought together noted activists and community leaders who spoke about a range of topics concerning civic engagement, from how to run for office and coalition building to preparing for the polls. Speakers included Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor, Maria Elena Durazo, actor Wilmer Valderrama, and legendary labor leader and co-founder of the United Farm Workers (with Cesar Chavez), Dolores Huerta.

“A lot of people know about the farmworkers movement,” said Huerta to a room full of youth activists and community leaders from all around the country.

“But what a lot of people don’t know is that a very large part of our movement was register people to vote. When we talk about leadership, the first leadership experience that I ever had was asking people to register to vote. Going door-to-door, knocking on doors, and talking to people, and for Cesar [Chavez] too.”

The presence of DREAM Act-eligible youth — undocumented persons who qualify for the federal immigration bill — at the conference was also evident. During the question and answer portion of the opening plenary, two students alluded to their immigration statuses as motivation to their community organizing efforts.

Myrna Orozco, a United We Dream member from Kansas City, Missouri wore an Orange County DREAM Team t-shirt — a reappropriation of the now famous San Diego, CA caution sign — the running family now replaced with undocumented graduates, cap, gown and diploma included.

“Whether we are advocating for immigration reform, the DREAM Act, healthcare issues, education, etc.,” said Orozco, “This is a great space to come and just talk about voter registration and get-out-the vote efforts for the Latino community, which provides a focus point for all of our different issues.”

Durazo stressed the importance of reaching out to young people very early on.

“Today’s focus on young people is just great. The sooner that they become involved in the political process, then it just becomes part of the culture,” Durazo said to HufPost. “Our most important activist group within the youth is the DREAMers. They are just extraordinary [and] so courageous. So, when they’re involved, they really inspire their generation.”

Rosario Dawson ended her remarks with “Thank you all for not being at Coachella this weekend, and being with us” — referring to the music festival happening at the same time — “I truly appreciate that.”

“Where you put your heart, your time and your mind is really what is going to affect the change that we need to see. Especially this upcoming election.”

Source: Huffington Post Latino