Clerks 2 star one of the boys

Clerks 2 star Rosario Dawson.

There's something unsettling about a beautiful woman who can curse like a sailor and tell a bawdy joke with as much enthusiasm as an adolescent fratboy.

But that's Rosario Dawson, 25, who's as comfortable discussing global poverty and Aids as she is the merits of anal bleaching. And by the time she's done, you're almost as comfortable as she is. Almost.

An exotic beauty of Native American/Puerto Rican/African/Cuban descent who occasionally bears a resemblance to Angelina Jolie, Dawson's real life upbringing reads a lot more interesting than her onscreen roles in: Sin City, Rent, Josie and the Pussycats, and The Adventures of Pluto Nash.

To dismiss her humble beginnings in a cliched "wrong side of the tracks story" would be an understatement, and grossly unfair. Interestingly, many actors who hail from "less fortunate circumstances" fictionalise their childhood for fear of embarrassment. But Dawson, endowed with an abundance of confidence, has no fear of how others view her less-than-idyllic beginnings. In fact, she is proud of her extraordinary origins.

"I'm a New Yorker born and bred. I grew up squatting with my family," Dawson declares evenly. "I was 6-years-old when we first began living that way. It was very dangerous for my mom because most women squatters were either crazy or huge drug addicts. Growing up in that environment, you're dealing with no water or electricity, and you don't have a lock on your door. But my parents showed an enormous amount of bravery to move not only themselves in, but their kids."

Dawson has an unusual, albeit healthy perspective on her parents' lifestyle choice. "They were idealists. They wanted to build their life on their own terms. So my mom became a plumber and my dad did the construction and electricals on the building. They put the sewage lines in themselves. They worked on everything together.

"We went from having to go up four flights of stairs to get water from the hydrant in the compound bucket to being able to finally flush a toilet. I remember moments like, "Wow, we have a tub and we don't have to boil the water on the stove. We get to actually pour it. You get to turn a knob and here it comes!" So that was all really amazing for me. It made me very proud and grateful for my past, and also where I am right now." Incidentally, her parents are now divorced.

As fate would have it, Dawson owes her career to that particular childhood building in New York's Alphabet City. "I was discovered sitting on the stoop of that building. I would have never gotten into acting if that hadn't happened."

The eventual role was as a sexually promiscuous teen, testing for Aids after some risky behaviour, in the controversial 1995 movie Kids.

She's not so different from that role. Speaking in rapid fire stream of consciousness, she seems to fit more words into one breath than humanly possible. Articulate, opinionated, and with zero tolerance for stupidity, she stars in the upcoming Clerks 2, the sequel to the cult classic from Kevin Smith.

He reprises his infamously irreverent characters: a dead-end-job duo whose dense dialogue runs the gamut from theories on the true meaning of Star Wars (which has apparently upset creator/director George Lucas) to over-the-top coming-of-age crudeness, to various metaphorical musings on The Lord of the Rings. So, where does Dawson fit into this cult teenage movie?

"It's artistic, and it's shocking. The dialogue really speaks to people. This is how friends really talk to each other. They're crude guys, and this movie is definitely not for everyone, but I'm a New Yorker, so it's all fine with me," she laughs.

"But I did have to warn my grandmother not to ask her church friends to go see it."

Dawson's views on so-called taboo subjects are refreshing - especially growing up with America's often puritanical and debilitating views on sexuality and racial politics.

"It's ridiculous that the subjects mentioned in the movie are considered over the top. Why?" she asks, rhetorically. "Sexism is real. Racism is real. But we're not allowed to talk about that in mixed company. That's what makes it so funny. The dialogue is not diluted; it's very real. And look at the protagonists (Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson) - they're not the most handsome, nor are they the most well spoken guys. But you're entertained."

She may not be starring opposite Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp at the moment; however, in real life, Dawson is in a relationship with one of the world's most desirable men. Anyone who has watched Sex and the City will know her offscreen boyfriend as "Smith" (Jason Lewis), the much-younger paramour of Kim Cattrall's sexually liberated "Samantha."

Dawson laughs. "I don't watch a lot of television so I didn't know who he was when we first met. We've just moved to LA from New York and have been together for two years now. It's going really good and it's still funny having people come up to me about him."

Is it a challenge dealing with the women approaching Lewis? She pauses. "It's a really interesting thing. People can be very inappropriate. They'll come over and grab him and be really physical with him because he is such a good looking guy. A woman will come up, and be like, 'Can I take a picture with you?' and her husband is taking the photograph. And all of a sudden he'll be like, 'Honey!' And she'll have Jason's shirt off and she'll be rubbing his chest, saying, "I just wanted to see if you really had that six-pack. Ha ha ha!" And Jason will be, like, 'What are you doing?' And the husband will be, like, 'Why are you touching him?' and she'll be, like, 'Oh, it's okay. I saw him naked on the show."' Dawson shakes her head in disbelief. "No, it's not okay to be grabbing somebody you don't know."

But surely Dawson is familiar navigating through her own level of fame? "I am. But there are things you don't get used to. There's such a level of inappropriateness in the way people talk to each other.

"It's probably 10 times worse when you're someone who's in the public eye, because you're in someone's home, you're on television and people feel like they know you. They see an opportunity, they'll stop talking to their own friends, they'll cross the street and do weird things to get your eye."

She scolds like a school teacher. "You say to them, 'Pay attention to what you're doing right now. You don't even remember what movie you saw me in! You just kind of think I'm someone famous. But you just cut off your friends. You cut off my conversation, too. That was really inappropriate."'

Dawson is on a roll. "Thankfully, I'm not the jealous type. I'm not insecure, at least not in that way. The idea of slapping the girl who your boyfriend cheats on you with doesn't make any sense to me. Slap him! Do you know what I mean? Have some more respect for yourself!"

Not content to restrict herself to artistic pursuits in front of the cameras alone, Dawson is producing a movie she describes as "a rape and revenge film." She is also producing a comic book, an unusual passion she inherited from her uncle, Gus Vasquez, a comic book artist. "I've always been into comics. It's called the O.C.T. (The Occult Crimes Taskforce), and it's about different kinds of magic. Then I'll be going back into another acting role in a movie called Grindhouse which is the next movie by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez."

Dawson epitomises the modern "empowered woman", onscreen and off.

"I've avoided playing klutzy sweet girls. I like a woman to strut around and be powerful, and if you have the nerve to talk to her maybe you'll get lucky and she'll give you her number," she says.

The combination of beauty and outspokenness is a terrifying idea for many men.

"Well, America really needs to get past sexuality as being seen as a negative thing and we shouldn't be hiding it. We need to pay attention to the 11-year-olds who are disappearing because of the internet. Kids aren't talking to their parents or grandparents anymore for information because they can look it up online.

"There's a lot of disconnection these days," she says. "Sometimes you've got to shock people into realising what's really going on."

Lowdown

Who: Rosario Dawson, multicultured sex bomb
Born: May 9, 1979, New York
Key roles: Kids (1995); Josie and the Pussycats (2001); Men in Black II (2002); The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002); 25th Hour (2002); Alexander (2004); Sin City (2005); Rent (2005)
Latest: Clerks 2, in cinemas now