By Joseph McCabe
Photo by Sophia Quach

There are girls, there are guy?s girls and there are geek?s girls. Rosario Dawson?bless her heart?is a geek?s girl.

You?d never know from looking at her. With a long, curvy frame, saucer-sized eyes and sly sexy smile, Dawson looks like she?d be more at home in the latest Victoria?s Secret Catalogue than at a comic book convention. But the actress hit more than one geek fest last year to promote her own Occult Crimes Task Force comic; and in recent years she?s taken on roles in a number of fanboy-fave films, including Sin City, The Devil?s Rejects, Clerks II, and now Grindhouse. Dawson stars in Quentin Tarantino?s half of the double feature, Death Proof, as Abernathy, one of a group of gal pals who find themselves targeted by a vicious stunt-man-turned-serial-killer, only to turn the tables on him in an action-packed auto chase that climaxes the three-hour epic.

FEARnet grabbed some gab time with Dawson at the Grindhouse press junket in LA, where she shared her experiences as the only passenger in one of wildest car stunt scenes in recent history.

?I very much wanted to do stunts,? she says. ?I thought because I knew Jeff Dashnaw from Sin City?he was the stunt coordinator on this as well?that maybe I?d have a little bit of an in and that I could, you know. I think, about everyday, I asked him if I could get strapped to the hood of a car. I was like, ?I?d be a really great hood ornament, I swear! I?ll be good, I won?t tell anyone.? But it didn?t really work out that way. I have to say, though, I felt very grateful for the character that I was playing. ?Cause a lot of the times, Tracy couldn?t be driving the car because they actually really needed a stuntwoman in there; and Zoe is a stuntwoman so she was always in the car. So it felt really nice to be able to be a part of that, and just to hang out with all the stunt crew. When you?re doing those scenes, you?re just out in the car. Everyone in hair and make-up?all the crew?is sitting back at base camp, and you?re driving around for a half an hour, forty-five minutes, doing seventy miles per hour. We come back all like, ?Whew, that was great.? And they?re like, ?How was it?!? So it was nice to be in the vehicle doing the three-sixties. I had a pretty good job.?

And just how fast was her car driving in those scenes?

?It was a running joke all the time, because there actually wasn?t a speedometer in the car that worked. There wasn?t a lot of them in those cars that worked, to be honest. But every single time, with me, ?That felt really fast, Tracy. How fast were you going?? ?Thirty-five.? It was like the biggest joke ever. There was one point, literally, where the camera truck that was driving with the jib on it said they clocked it at a hundred. It was pretty ridiculous. As fast as it looks is really as fast as it was. That?s actually the best part about it?to know that people watching it are sitting at the edge of [their] seats, like really excited about it, and that really happened. Some of the best stunt people in the world were doing this, and anything and everything that you see in that movie is something that they physically did. If we couldn?t do it, no CGI or special effects were used. If we couldn?t really do it, then Quentin didn?t want it in the movie.?

Dawson previously worked with Grindhouse?s other director?Robert Rodriguez?on his Sin City. We ask her to describe the differences in working with the two maverick filmmakers.

?Robert is very laid back. I had a very different experience with him on Sin City than I?m sure [I would have had] in any of his other films that he?s actually written and done his own storyboards for, because it was so much completely out of Frank Miller?s mind. I think direction-wise, I probably have a different experience of him so it?s hard to compare in that way, but he?s very laid back. We were shooting everything all in one room, and he just showed me a lot of the footage of what they?d already shot. Since we were just making what was already on the comic come to life, it was a different process. I could talk to Frank, I could just look at the work and kind of figure out like, ?Okay, I need to have my fist up here and that expression.? Whatever way I have to get to that experience, then I?ll do it. It?s a little bit different direction-wise with Quentin. With Quentin, we did a lot of rehearsal beforehand. We?d talk about a lot of stuff. He has so much backstory written for each character. If you wanna know why she?s in a cheerleader outfit, if you wanna know why I say this particular line, it?s because four years earlier when Kim and I were working on Three Kicks to the Head: Part 3 we had this experience?

?He has it so written down, he?s like ?Ask as many questions or as few as you want, because I have it all in my head.? The information in this man?s head is daunting. It was great. It was very invaluable, because it really I think brought a richness to the scenes and the dialogue between all the characters that I don?t think you normally come across in films like this. So it was great. Quentin always delivers that incredible dialogue and snappy moments, even in things that seem kind of trivial. He can introduce the gun, he can introduce these different things into a scene, and you don?t automatically feel, ?Oh, that?s foreshadowing, that?s gonna come up later.? He?s amazing at doing that, because you just believe the characters are so caught up in the moment that you really do get caught up in the suspense of the situations. I love that with him.?

Dawson explains how Death Proof?s cast?including stuntwoman-turned-actor Zoe Bell, making her acting debut?topped a record previously held by the cast of Tarantino?s Reservoir Dogs.

?One of my favorite parts is the four-shot, the Reservoir Dogs shot when we?re in the diner. We did that all in one take, and we were rehearsing our asses off. When you?re on location, it?s real easy to do that. But Zoe was really nervous because she?s never done it. We would call it the ?talky? rehearsals, because it was very different for her. She would read the script and she would automatically go, ?Blah, blah, blah, blah?action!? She would read all the action bits. The way she read a script as a stuntwoman was very different than how Tracy [Thoms] and I were reading it. It was very interesting, collaborating with each other and rehearsing all the time. She was very nervous. She knew she could do the stunt stuff, no problem, but she wanted to make sure the acting and the opportunity that Quentin gave her?that she would really drive home. It?s amazing, because we scrapped an entire day?s worth of work, of coverage, that Quentin did, because he wanted to break up the shot. Half is a Reservoir Dogs shot. We had the scene so down, because we?d been doing it every night for months?because we were supposed to shoot over the summer and we didn?t start shooting until the fall; so we had our lines memorized as of, like, May. So by the time we actually did it, we were able to do it in one take, and he was like, ?Let?s scrap everything. I think you guys can do it.? We did it and it?s cool, because we beat the Reservoir Dogs shots, because even in the Reservoir Dogs shot, it?s cut up.

?So that?s what I?m just sayin?, those Reservoir bitches??
Dawson laughs and claims her skilled use of profanity helped her embellish Death Proof?s script.

?All of it was written except for maybe a couple of those f-words, I have to say. You don?t notice them, because that?s fairly common in his? The expletives I think would be the only thing. But literally every single word that?s in there? If you watch take after take of all those different ones, because we just did it in one take, it?s exactly the same?every single time. Because the camera moves were dictated by our dialogue. We?re zooming in, doing three-shots, one-shots, going around having actually all four of us in there. We would all move accordingly if the camera came behind us. It was such a choreographed thing we really couldn?t mess around.?

Since Dawson?s been a fan of Tarantino?s since she became an actor, she says she was thrilled to finally work with him.

?Quentin?s rhythm?s something that I?ve been studying since I first decided I wanted to be an actor. After Kids?I was sixteen when that movie came out?I decided to pursue acting. I asked my dad, ?What movie should I watch?? I started putting together a movie list together of what I should watch to watch great acting, and the first movie he gave me was Reservoir Dogs. I watched it seven times that week, which I think most parents would be unnerved by. My dad was like, ?You get it!? I was like, ?Right on!? It started a great report between him and I, dialogue-wise, with films.

?I have the ?Like a Virgin? monologue completely memorized. On occasion, Quentin would be like, ?Do it!?; make me regurgitate it. When I watched it I thought it was so incredible, but I?m watching it and it?s all men. So as much as I?ve always had Quentin in my head as someone I?ve always wanted to work with, I just didn?t really think it was a possibility. But I auditioned for this twice. I fought really hard for this role. I ended up going in and telling Tracy to come in on the audition with me??to make sure that we nail this home??because I really, really wanted to do this part and work with him. So to have the chance to really take on working in that rhythm and his dialogue? Because the only way you can ever study for a Quentin Tarantino movie is to watch Quentin Tarantino movies, which he loves. He?s like, ?You know, the only competition is me and the past.??
Dawson laughs again. ?I?m like, ?Alright Quentin???