‘Clerks III’ Star Rosario Dawson Has Heard Those ‘Daredevil’ Rumors, But She’s Not Going To Spill The Beans Like Tom Holland

Rosario Dawson made a cinematic splash when she was discovered by Larry Clark and Harmony Korine for her film debut in 1995’s Kids, and since then she’s forged a career that’s taken her into a number of high-profile projects as well as into the films of a staggering number of notable directors, including Spike Lee, Barry Sonnenfeld, Ed Burns, Oliver Stone, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino, just to name a few.

Oh, right, we left out one particularly notable name: Kevin Smith, who introduced Dawson into his View Askew-niverse in 2006’s Clerks II. Now Dawson is back, reprising her role as Becky, Dante Hicks’ significant other, for Clerks III, and in the midst of her flurry of press for the film, she took time to talk to Decider about the surprising emotional heft of the film, the importance of Kids in her career, whether she’d be up for returning to the MCU as Claire Temple, and how she got her very first on-camera role…on Sesame Street.

DECIDER: In returning for the role of Becky, Kevin makes a reference in the credits about how you had work around some Jedi-related matters to do the film. Did that have any effect on Becky’s character arc in the film, or was that already planned out?

ROSARIO DAWSON: I…don’t know. I mean, he eludes to that and goes, “I knew you weren’t going to have a lot of time,” but I honestly think that it’s such a testament to the character, her importance, and that build-up as a new character brought into the Clerks / View Askew universe in the second film that that relationship can be so poignant in the storytelling of the third one and automatically bring this gravitas to the story. You’re showing up to watch because you know it’s going to be irreverent, it’s going to be a slice of a life and funny and deprecating and great monologues and banter and debate and all of these wonderful things that we love that’s such a genre that he’s created all on his own, it feels like. But at the same time, these are people you’ve been with for decades, and they’ve gone through life, and we’ve gone through growing pains along with them. To have that reflected in the storytelling and be a character that can enrich that humanity in the storytelling… It’s just really, really special. So I was crushed – I cried when I read it, I cried at the premiere – but it really works, and it’s special, and it got some incredible performances out of Randall and Dante in the story.

Oh, yeah. it’s tremendous. But there’s also a comedic shift in the film after Randall suffers his…incident, shall we say. 

Yeah! I think life and death are the crux of all of our stories in this lifetime that we share, and knowing that Kevin had a widow-maker heart attack just a couple of years ago, surviving that, and then being able to come back around to the story and decide to make this and have that reality so embedded into the storytelling… It was just really provocative. And part of the whole meta-ness of it all, right? [Laughs.] This film could be called Meta, it’s so meta! And, again, it’s special. It’s really cool to see how this third film is sort of this perfect kind of amalgamation of the first and the second one, and those two films are so different from each other, so…it’s a really remarkable three-act story that we’ve all been a part of the development of for all these years.

And there’s so many Easter eggs for fans…although I don’t know if you can really call them “Easter eggs,” since they’re so unabashedly out in the open.

For sure! There’s a lot that’s alluded to and played with. But it’s also really new, and it’s really cool to see Kevin as a filmmaker be able to explore that and kind of get into this nuance and how much he’s grown as a filmmaker to be able to get into this level of storytelling. It’s a gift, you know what I mean? It’s controversial, but I think the fans area going to like it. 

I was going to ask if you were shocked by the conclusion of the film, the fact that it didn’t turn out to be any sort of fake-out or bait-and-switch situation. It was exactly what it was.

Yeah. [Sighs.] And it’s heartbreaking. It’s real. It’s good. And it makes me feel like all that’s left now is a prequel. [Laughs.]

It’s inevitable.

It’s only a matter of time!

I wanted to quickly ask you about a couple of other things. I’m curious: how do you look back at the experience of doing Kids and the legacy of that film?

Oh, my God. I mean, I’m an actor because of that. And so much came from that. Like, that movie came out, and then I decided I wanted to continue acting. And then my dad told me to watch Reservoir Dogs. He said, “If you want to know acting, watch this movie!” So I watched it five times in one week. It was the first soundtrack I ever bought. And I made my list of all the directors that I wanted to work with, Kevin Smith being one of them of that time of, like, standout ’90s filmmakers in independent film. 

So it was a gift. And it’s such a New York moment being discovered on my stoop, and I’ve been running with it ever since. And I marvel at these different rooms that I get to be in and these moments in history that I get to be a part of. You know, Frank Miller and Robert [Rodriguez] with Sin City, and then to see Robert with Jon [Favreau] on The Mandalorian, and…just all these connections! I do my six degrees of Kevin Bacon just through ’90s filmmaking. [Laughs.] And it’s really cool to see us all still doing it! 

I have to tell you this, because it’s really funny. Spike [Lee] called me, and I was in my makeup as Ahsoka [on The Mandalorian], and he’s, like, “What are you doing, The Lion King?” [Laughs.] It was so amazing…and I was immediately, like, “I have to tell Jon, he’ll think that’s so hilarious!” But it’s just so cool that we’re all still doing this, and that we’re all still here! We’re not all going to be here forever.

The story about you being discovered for Kids is legendary, but how did you find your way into your appearance on Sesame Street?

Sesame Street was because…I lived in an abandoned building, a squat on the Lower East Side, and this woman Paula, she worked at Children’s Liberation, which was, like, this preschool. She was dating a camera guy on the show, and they were filming on this community garden, and she paid me twenty bucks to help watch some of these little kids, because they were really little. She was, like, “I’m not gonna have them all on camera at the same time.” So I got paid twenty bucks, and I was, like, “Sweet!” But when I got there, they were, like, “Can you be on camera and do some of this voiceover?” And I said, “All right, cool.” And that’s still the coolest thing that I get recognized from forever.

That was my first big break: Sesame Street, in one of those little videos. And I loved those little offshoot videos that they used to do about how things are made or done. And to be about community gardening and latchkey kids… That was dope! So, yeah, twenty bucks for my first job. [Laughs.]

Have you heard anything about the possibility of Claire Temple (from Daredevil) returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Haven’t. I mean, I’ve heard rumors online, but I’m not touching any of those anymore because I’m already being called Tom Holland. [Laughs.] Because I guess he leaks things, and I’m not to be trusted, apparently? So I’m not trying to do that. I’m not gonna go there anymore. That’s it. 

Fair enough. But would you like it if that were to happen?

I would love it! They know where I am, though. I’ve become somehow a Disney princess over the last couple of years, which is, like, dazzling to me. I’ve got The Haunted Mansion coming up in March, too. I’m, like, “What’s going on? This is incredible!” And all our shows that we did with Netflix are now part of the official MCU, because apparently they’ve got Vincent [D’Onofrio] coming into these new stories and…it’s just the coolest thing.

That’s a character that I got to live with for awhile, which was the first time I got to do that. I was so into film before then, so it’d just be these three-month experiences, maybe six months, and that’d be it. So to just be with this character Claire over multiple shows and multiple showrunners was dazzling. It was remarkable to grow with her, and I had no idea where that story was going when I first signed on. Just like I was shocked and surprised and devastated when I read Clerks III. I did not know what he was thinking of or where he was going with little Becky all this time! But it’s still cool to bring life to that.

So if I can do it… Again, they know where I am, and I’d love that. But I’m just excited that everybody’s back onboard at the same network again and that these characters can get more storytelling out of it, because I love it.

Lastly, what’s your favorite project you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

Oooh. Um… [Long pause.] I mean, that’s actually a lot of projects. That’s tough. But, like, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, I did a small thing in that. But I think that’s one of the reasons I just love meeting with fans and going to these different cons: because there’ll be this one person with, like, a Pluto Nash poster. [Laughs.] You never know who loves what.

Clerks III is currently in theaters, and will be arriving on digital formats later in 2022.

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)