Rosie Perez

Rosie Perez was born in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York City, to Lydia Perez and Ismael Serrano who was a merchant marine. She is Puerto Rican. Rosie was educated at Grover Cleveland High School, Ridgewood, Queens, New York. She later enrolled at Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles, California. Rosie Perez was just starting her second year in college and about to return to New York. Her friends had brought her a going-away party. The moment Spike Lee proposed that she take part in his movie Do the Right Thing (1989), she said yes. This was her first major acting part. She was to play the character Carla Rodrigo in Peter Weir's Fearless (1993) which was for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. (She was defeated by Anna Paquin for The Piano (1993). In my early days, the Latin community was the source of much of the criticism I was subjected to. I can remember them taking me out for lunch and saying to me "Can you take lessons to reduce the accent?" or, "When it's a talk show, how can you not not be funny? Some people were so critical of my voice, they gave me a lot of grief. I really did try to improve my voice however, it was just the way I spoke. As I got older the octaves fell, thank God. Boxing is about taking on your biggest fears. Boxing is more about fighting for your rights. Floyd Mayweather could get punched with a clean punch down the middle, right to his face and he'd never flinch. And I'm sure of what he's doing. [Who mentioned Don Cornelius's fascination with her dancing] Don Cornelius was not interested in seeing me actually perform. I was doing hip-hop and it was an entirely different style from Californians. They were only familiar with popping and locking, so hip-hop dancing was not something they were looking to master. Don was just like "No No, no. You're an attractive girl." I was like"What? This is really bizarre. It was really strange.