Rosario Darson will play Mimi Marquez in the film version of Rent, according to Variety. Broadway.com has also learned that Tony winner Wilson Jermaine Heredia is in talks to play drag queen Angel in the movie, joining previously announced original Broadway cast members Taye Diggs, Jesse L. Martin, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp.
Dawson got her start as one of the teens in Larry Clark's controversial 1995 film Kids, which she landed after being discovered on a Manhattan stoop. She has since appeared in several big budget Hollywood projects, including He Got Game, Light It Up, Sidewalks of New York, Men in Black II, The 25th Hour and Shattered Glass. She will appear in Oliver Stone's upcoming Alexander, to be released November 24. She has never appeared in a full-scale musical, but did sing her own vocals in the film Josie and the Pussycats.
For his work as AIDS-striken drag performance artist Angel in the original cast of Rent, Heredia earned a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award. He also recreated the part for the 1998 London production of the show, earning a nomination for an Olivier Award. His only New York stage credit since leaving Rent is Eli's Comin', the Laura Nyro musical that played at off-Broadway's Vineyard Theatre in the summer of 2001. In addition, Heredia played drag queen Cha-Cha in the 1999 film Flawless and has appeared on the small screen in Spin City and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Rent, directed by Chris Columbus, is scheduled to begin shooting in San Francisco in early spring 2005. It is tentatively set for release later in the year.
