Rosario Dawson started her acting career in the 1990s as a child actor and has come a long way since then. Up until now, the actress has played a wide variety of roles. Several of her television shows and movies include immense works like Men in Black II, Miss Representation, and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, among others.
The actress starred in Quentin Tarantino’s 2007 black comedy film, in which Kurt Russell played a stuntman turned serial killer who killed young women with modified vehicles.
The amount of effort Tarantino put into Death Proof astounded Dawson. His fictional characters had much longer backstories than those depicted in the movie. In contrast, he gave his creations full beginnings, which gave them depth on screen.
Still, there was something odd, that the actress—who is also well-known for playing a number of characters in comic book films and television adaptations—found about Tarantino’s movie.
Rosario Dawson’s Bold Critique Of Quentin Tarantino’s 2007 Cult Classic
For his 2007 film, Death Proof, director Quentin Tarantino recruited the Light It Up actress, Rosario Dawson. The black comedy film may initially appear to be a standard horror movie. But the actress once acknowledged that the movie had some components that prevented it from being that. She told Bust:
“I mean, I said Death Proof was a chick flick because you look at the poster, and it looks like a total gearhead guy movie, but really, the women are in control.”
According to the Ahsoka actor, Kurt Russell’s perp is ultimately defeated by the women in the movie. At the end of the day, everyone involved had a happy experience, including the viewers:
“As much as it starts off misogynistic, with this creepy guy who’s checking out this group of girls, the girls turn on him. And they take this guy who’s really dangerous and scary, and they turn him into the weepy cowardly lion. It’s meant to make you feel euphoric when you leave.”
These characteristics, in her opinion, made Death Proof unrealistic, as the actress argued:
“Well, obviously, Death Proof isn’t meant to be realistic, it’s a goofy cartoon. It’s an homage to grind-house movies, where women were allowed to do the same things men did in movies—pimping and killing and all that stuff. Those old blaxploitation and grind-house films were the first to let women assume those roles, especially women of color.”
Quentin Tarantino’s Work Astounded Rosario Dawson
The amount of effort Quentin Tarantino put into Death Proof left Rosario Dawson speechless. His fictional characters had much longer backstories than what was depicted in the movie. Instead, he gave his creations complete beginnings so that they could be fully realized on screen.
In a 2007 interview with Collider, the Chelsea Walls actress stated:
“He has so much back-story written for each character. If you want to know why she’s in a cheerleader outfit, if you want to 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 Three’ we had this… he has it so written out. 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.”
Dawson was even adamant that she would play the lead in Tarantino’s 2007 Grindhouse film. She, however, initially believed that her audition left the filmmakers with a negative impression of her.
In an interview with Moviehole in 2007, the Young Rock actress stated:
“I auditioned for Quentin with Robert there, and it was really fun. He was really into it, but afterwards he continued looking, and I was really disappointed by that, because I really wanted to work with him, and just the idea of not having impressed him enough was crazy to me.”
The film was released in theaters as part of a double feature called Grindhouse that also included Planet Terror by Robert Rodriguez. But, later Death Proof was released as a stand-alone feature in other nations and on home media after Grindhouse failed to perform well at the domestic box office.
Death Proof is available to rent on Apple TV.
Source- BUST
