Rosie Perez

Rosie Perez was the daughter of Lydia Perez, a merchant marine and Ismael Serano. She was born in Bushwick Brooklyn, New York City. She is of Puerto Rican descent. Rosie attended Grover Cleveland High School, Ridgewood, Queens, New York. Then she attended Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles, California. Rosie Perez was just starting her second year at college, and was about to go back to New York. Her departure was a party by her fellow students. Spike Lee offered her a role in his 1989 film Do the Right Thing (1989). She accepted. It was her first big acting role. She went on play the role of Carla Rodrigo in Peter Weir's Fearless (1993) and for which she received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. (She lost to Anna Paquin for The Piano (1993).) The Latin community was the root of the majority of my critique early in my career. They used to go out for lunch and tell me, "Can you go and learn to lower the sound of your voice?". Or, "When it's a talk show, how are you going to not be funny? People gave me so much criticism about my voice, and I even tried. I really did try to change however, it was just my voice that I used to speak. Thank Godthat my octaves decreased as I grew older. It's all about taking on your fears head-on. Boxing is about fighting for yourself. Floyd Mayweather could be punched, like a clean shot down his middle and he'd never hesitate. And I understand what he's doing. [Who mentioned Don Cornelius's fascination with her dancing]: Don Cornelius was not interested in watching me perform. I was doing hip-hop, which was an entirely different style from Californians. They were only acquainted with locking and popping, so hip-hop dancing was not something they were looking to master. Don was the kind of person who said "No you don't. You're female. I thought, "What? This is truly weird. This is truly bizarre.