Rosario Dawson (Sin City, Seven Pounds) returns to the world of independent films with a starring role in Explicit Ills written and directed by Mark Webber. Explicit Ills focuses on the struggle to survive in a poor neighborhood, an issue that in these hard economic times strikes home now more than ever. Dawson plays a single mom who can't afford the medicine to take care of her asthmatic child.
At the film's LA press day, Dawson spoke about what the title of the film meant to her.

"For me it’s very Philly. It’s very graffiti. To me, it’s very hip hop. It’s full on," said Dawson. "Explicit Ills may be kind of a strange thing for people. 'What is that?' But it actually really made sense for the movie. It’s provocative. It’s sexy and smart. It’s what’s going on in our times right now. I think it’s amazing because it’s changed - that title. It’s gotten even more profound, I think, because of the economic crisis that we’re going through."

"Mark [Webber, writer/director] is someone who grew up being homeless and at a certain point lived in a car with his mom. He’s walked in marches and been an advocate for anti-poverty. When he wrote this, it’s one of the reasons I really wanted to do it. We connected on this on a personal level. Having grown up in a squat on the Lower East Side, I got how powerful our mothers were in our lives. Being activists was an inherited part of our beings. The understanding that we’ve always grown up with that most people are a paycheck away from being homeless is now a reality that a lot people understand.

Much bigger than they ever have before, and that makes this movie even more important to be out more than ever which is shocking. Even when it played at CineVegas and South by Southwest people are already saying they think about the movie differently just because the key words now are so much more vernacular in our news. It’s such more of a present issue than people had thought before. But he knew that, and that’s what’s so great because that’s been a present issue for a lot of people for a long time. It’s just now finally become popular for people to talk about."

Explicit Ills is actor Mark Webber's debut as a writer and director, but it's not the first time Dawson had worked with him on a film. "The first movie that Mark and I actually worked on is called Chelsea Walls and we acted together in that. It was Ethan Hawke’s directorial debut. It was amazing working on [that with] Ethan because he was an actor and he had a real sort of sense about emotionally where all of us needed to be and getting all the stuff because it was independent and it was digital. He had a lot more time to play and do these 15 minute long takes because it was digital and we didn’t have to worry about it. This was different because of the time frames that we had. We weren’t on this one location [and] we didn’t have that much time to play the same way we did with Ethan," explained Dawson.

"We found the time because he is very sensitive in that way. Mark was sitting there and said, 'I know it’s horrifying what I’m asking you to do over and over again. Rosario thank you so much for being here, but I’m going to make you scream and cry and experience probably one of the most awful things you can possibly imagine experiencing.' It was very profound for me because my mom is asthmatic and she lives far away from me. I think about that all the time. I’ve seen her in situations where she couldn’t breathe. We get out of a car and we’re in a neighborhood that has really bad smog and she totally just can not breathe. It’s such a helpless feeling to be in front of. This is such a personal story for him, and Mark is an actor who is a very sensitive actor. It’s just really great to see how he nurtured everybody through their performances. Also, to be tough on them too to bring it not just from a personal place, but also this is fictional. This is about putting a nameless face out there and making people understand it. It’s based on true issues, but it’s not a true story to a certain degree."

Dawson pulled from her own experiences in developing her character. Asked if she modeled her character after someone she knew, Dawson replied, "A few people, actually. My mom was 17 when she had me. My character doesn’t have a name. I’m Babo’s mom. So much of who she is is dependent on who he is. He was the center of my whole world. To look at that and be like, 'I’m this young mother - I’m uneducated, I’m inexperienced and I have zero resources. I’m looking at this marvelous child who I somehow gave birth to, miraculously and I’m not the person who should be raising him. He deserves better than me.' The frustration of that and the helplessness of it and the anger and just shock of it all and seeing her trying to cope with this young man who just seems to be able to have the right answer more than her…"

Without giving away the ending, Dawson concluded, "To use that frustration and passion and anger she had trying to figure out how to help him and to figuring out how to get out of her own way and maybe help other people, it was a fascinating thing getting into that. I grew up in an area where I know so many women who are like that, and that was the story I wanted to tell. I understand the stigma against poor people. I understand the stigma against people who are not healthy, and that’s not fair and it’s not right. They’re good people and they’re decent people. They’re willing to work hard to get themselves out of where they are. They just need help. It’s just the reality. All of us need help to some capacity and this system and how this country works is not forgiving to people who are poor. And if you are unhealthy you’re really screwed in a lot of ways, and that’s for people who have money as well. That’s just the way the country runs and it was just trying to be nurturing, I think, to all the people I know who will really recognize themselves in this woman."

* * * * * *

Explicit Ills is rated R for language and some drug use and hits theaters in limited release on March 20, 2009.