There are a few things to know about Rosario Dawson: She’s usually the last one to leave a party (hey, she loves to chat), she’s not big on routine, and she’ll rise to the occasion when her 17-year-old daughter, Isabella, challenges her to do a cartwheel into a split. “I got up slowly,” the 40-year-old says with a laugh, slipping off her black Burberry trench coat at a café in Venice, California, as she recalls how she recovered after landing the move. “It was like, ‘Damn it! Thanks for letting me know I won’t be doing that forever.’ But I can still do it!”
Enjoying right where she is in life is something the New York City–bred actress has come to appreciate. “I have that East Coast energy of just go, go, go,” she says. “But it really is beautiful when you take your time.”
With her first television series lead role in the USA crime mystery Briarpatch, a growing relationship with Isabella (whom she adopted when the now-teen was 11), and a steady romance with New Jersey senator Cory Booker, or Cab, as she calls him, Rosario has plenty to bask in.
She credits this more laid-back attitude in part to her father, who underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer late last year.
“So much of life has gone by so fast,” says Rosario, who made her on-screen debut at age 16 in the 1995 indie drama Kids before appearing in movies like Sin City, Rent, and Seven Pounds, in addition to scoring the recurring role of doctor Claire Temple in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “But moments with my dad—just, like a meal—are the most amazing thing. I want to be present. It’s waking me up to really loving my life and therefore being okay with the good, bad, and ugly.”
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What Rosario calls “being in my gratitude” has not only helped her tap into her happiness but is also, she hopes, making her a better mom. “Kids don’t listen to you; they emulate you,” she says. “I was always looking around the corner, wondering when my life was going to properly start. I’m in a different space to enjoy it now. I need to model that.”
As a parent, Rosario describes herself as “weird” and “funny” and admits that forging a strong kinship has been a challenge.
When Isabella came home with Rosario in 2014, “she was a very whole person,” says the actress. “We’re building up trust even still.” Waiting to get Isabella a cell phone and keeping her off social media has helped.
“I think it would have been difficult to bond so late in her life, and in our lives together, if we’d had technology between us. My daughter looks me in the eye, and we talk to each other. I think that’s important.”
“I was always looking around the corner, wondering when my life was going to properly start. I’m in a different space to enjoy it now.”
They see a family therapist, which has strengthened their connection and encouraged Rosario to unpack some rough experiences from her childhood. “I’ve learned so much about trauma, and I’ve started looking at my own,” says Rosario, who opened up in 2018 on the podcast Morado Lens about being raped and molested as a kid.
Now, she says, she’s keen to get a therapist for solo sessions, seeing how much the joint appointments with her daughter have helped their relationship. “My go-to place was being angry,” she says of how she’s channeled her emotions in the past. “I want to stop that.”