Rósa Arianna McGowan (born September 5, 1973) is an American actress and activist. After her film debut in a brief role in the comedy Encino Man (1992), she achieved recognition for her performance in the dark comedy The Doom Generation (1995), receiving an Independent Spirit Award nomination.
McGowan had her breakthrough in the horror film Scream (1996) and subsequently headlined the films Going All the Way (1997), Devil in the Flesh (1998), and Jawbreaker (1999). During the 2000s, she became known to television audiences for her role as Paige Matthews in The WB supernatural drama series Charmed (2001–2006). She starred in the double-feature film Grindhouse (2007), for which she was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2017, Time recognized McGowan as one of the Silence Breakers, the magazine's Person of the Year, for speaking out about sexual assault and harassment, specifically in regard to the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases and the MeToo movement. In 2018, she released a memoir, Brave, and starred in the four-part documentary series Citizen Rose.
Early life
Rósa Arianna McGowan was born on September 5, 1973, in Florence, Italy, to Irish artist Daniel McGowan, and American writer, Terri. She has two younger half-siblings. Her father ran an Italian chapter of the Children of God, which he and his wife were members of until 1978. McGowan spent her early childhood at the group's communes, often traveling through Europe with her parents.
Through her father's art contacts in Italy, she became a child model and appeared in Vogue Bambini and many other Italian magazines. Her parents returned to her mother's native United States when she was 10 years old, and settled in Eugene, Oregon. McGowan had an untraditional childhood, living as a teenage runaway in Portland, Oregon and associating with a group of drag queens in the city. When her parents divorced, she lived with her father in Seattle, Washington, attended Roosevelt High School and Nova Alternative High School, and worked at McDonald's. She took ballet lessons until she was 13. At 15, she officially emancipated herself from her parents and moved to Los Angeles.
Career
1990s: Early work and breakthrough
After making her Hollywood film debut with a brief role in the Pauly Shore comedy Encino Man (1992), McGowan was cast in the leading role in Gregg Araki's dark comedy The Doom Generation (1995), which revolved around a threesome of teens who embark on a sex and violence-filled journey. The film brought her a much wider recognition and the attention of film critics; she received a nomination for Best Debut Performance at the 1996 Independent Spirit Awards. McGowan next obtained the role of Tatum Riley in the slasher cult film Scream (1996), as the casting director believed she best embodied the "spunky", "cynical" but "innocent" nature of the ill-fated character. Upon its release, the film became a huge critical and financial success, grossing over $100 million in North America and $173 million worldwide. Amid her growing public profile, she was the cover model for the Henry Mancini tribute album Shots in the Dark, which was released in 1996, and became the face of American clothing company Bebe from 1998 to 1999. In 1997, she appeared in the short film Seed, directed by San Francisco-born filmmaker Karin Thayer, and played opposite Peter O'Toole in the 1998 film adaptation of the Dean Koontz novel Phantoms.
McGowan spent the majority of the late 1990s headlining a variety of independent films, including roles in Nowhere (1997), where she reunited with Araki, as well as Southie (1996), Going All the Way (1997), Lewis and Clark and George (1997), and Devil in the Flesh (1998), where she usually played seductive and mysterious characters. She gained much attention for the revealing fishnet outfit she wore to the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards. While dating Marilyn Manson, McGowan appeared in a music video for the song "Coma White"; she performed backing vocals on the song "Posthuman". Both of these songs appear on the album Mechanical Animals (1998). In the dark comedy Jawbreaker (1999), she portrayed Courtney Shayne, a popular yet malevolent high school student who tries to cover up her involvement in a classmate's murder. McGowan based her performance on that of Gene Tierney's sociopathic character in Leave Her to Heaven (1945). To accompany the release of the film, Imperial Teen's music video for the song Yoo Hoo featured McGowan as her character harassing the band members with jawbreakers. Jawbreaker was a critical and commercial failure, but found success through home video release and subsequent television airings; it has developed a cult following. McGowan earned a nomination for Best Villain at the 1999 MTV Movie Awards.
2000s: Rise to prominence and critical recognition
In 2001, McGowan was cast for the role of Paige Matthews in the popular WB supernatural drama series Charmed, as a replacement for the lead actress Shannen Doherty, who had left the show. In the show, about the trio of witches using their combined powers to protect innocent lives from evil beings, McGowan played the character from season four until its final eighth season. In the Charmed episode "Sense and Sense Ability", McGowan performed, in character, a cover of the Peggy Lee classic "Fever". In a review of the fourth season, Leigh H. Edwards of PopMatters added that the addition of Paige was "contrived and clunky", but welcomed the idea of McGowan joining the show as a witch "since she has major goth cred as Marilyn Manson's former flame". DVD Verdict's Cynthia Boris wrote that McGowan brought "a youthfulness" and "a fresh viewer perspective" to Charmed, further noting that "fans have come to enjoy her presence on the show." Sara Paige and Rachel Hyland of Geek Speak magazine described Paige as "snarky, compassionate and whimsical", and believed that "McGowan was well-suited for the role." At the 2002 Wand Awards, McGowan was nominated for Best New Cast Member and at the 2005 Family Television Awards, she won Favorite Sister, for her performance.
McGowan starred alongside Brendan Fraser, Bridget Fonda, and Whoopi Goldberg in the dark fantasy comedy Monkeybone (2001) as a cat girl from a limbo-like carnival landscape where nightmares are entertainment. Budgeted at US$75 million, the film only made US$7.6 million; McGowan felt that film "would've been incredible (at least the underworld part) if the men at 20th Century Fox (the suits) hadn't fired the director, a true artist, Henry Selick [half] the way through filming", and called his dismissal a "profoundly stupid move". During Charmed, McGowan portrayed actress-singer Ann-Margret in the CBS miniseries Elvis (2005), about the life of Elvis Presley. She also appeared briefly as the roommate of the titular character in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia (2006), a film noir shot in Los Angeles and Bulgaria and opposite Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank.
In 2007, McGowan headlined Grindhouse, a double feature horror film by directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. In Rodriguez's segment, Planet Terror, she starred as a go-go dancer and the leader of a group of rebels attempting to survive an onslaught of zombie-like creatures as they feud with a rogue military unit, while in Tarantino's segment, Death Proof, she played a brief role as a victim of a misogynistic, psychopathic stuntman who targets young women with his "death proof" stunt car. She performed three songs from the Planet Terror portion of Grindhouse, released on the film's soundtrack by the Varèse Sarabande label. The songs are entitled "You Belong to Me" (a Dean Martin/Jo Stafford cover), "Useless Talent", and "Two Against the World". While Grindhouse made a lackluster US$25.5 million in its theatrical release, it was the subject of much media coverage and critical acclaim from critics; James Berardinelli found McGowan to be the…