‘Haunted Mansion’ and ‘Ahsoka’ star Rosario Dawson talks environment, SAG-AFTRA strike

LOS ANGELES — It’s never a bad day when you get to hit the beach with “Haunted Mansion” and “Ahsoka” star Rosario Dawson. It’s an even better day when it’s for a good cause.

Dawson was part of a group of volunteers for the Shiseido Blue Project beach clean-up at the 2023 US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, CA.

“I just love these big companies using their platform to message that and how important it is. We only have one ocean so we need to take care of it,” Dawson told On The Red Carpet.

“I love an opportunity where you’re bringing a bunch of people together, but you also know that’s going to bring more garbage and let’s fold that into the concept as well,” Dawson said. “This beautiful place should be as beautiful if not more beautiful after we’ve been there.”

“We have such an opportunity and we create and make and build such beautiful things, but we can’t just leave our toys around. And when we do they break into tiny or smaller pieces and animals and creatures and birds and fish and everything end up eating it. And then we end up eating it, it’s not like it doesn’t come back around to us,” Dawson continued.

The food we eat and how it’s grown is one of the many environmental causes Dawson supports. She is part of a documentary called “Common Ground,” which made its debut earlier this year at the TriBeCa Film Festival and is set to be released in theaters this fall. She’s hoping it will bring change to current laws.

“We’re trying to get Congress to sit and watch it and really affect the farm bill and really talk about the practice of regenerative farming and learning what we know now about GMOs and, you know, insecticides and pesticides and herbicides and all that that’s contributing to our unhealth,” Dawson said.

The actress also spoke passionately in support of her SAG-AFTRA brothers and sisters, who she has joined on the picket lines.

“You know I think that when you hear the things that people are sharing and, you know, their experiences they’ve been having… I don’t know that I actually would have continued being an actor. I started out really young and those residual checks that came in were small but they were significant enough that I could have fresh food versus Ramen. That was a very real thing and now you have these huge successful shows on these streaming platforms and young actors coming up and there’s no money for them,” Dawson said.

“I think it’s beautiful kind of reckoning of humanity and I that’s why I feel like it scales in the same way we’re talking about climate change,” Dawson continued. “There’s just, like, a lot of confluences coming together of people realizing we’ve just gone into hyperdrive for so long, and all our toys and gadgets and things acceleration of these past decades, as someone who straddles the centuries.. it’s incredible what I’ve seen in my lifetime. But I think we need to take a second, and that’s what’s happening with workers across every industry, to go ‘what does the future look like?’ If we don’t figure that out now it’s going to be very dire for our children.”

Dawson can currently be seen in “Haunted Mansion,” in theaters now. Her latest project, “Star Wars Ahsoka” will premiere on Disney+ August 23.