Rose McGowan

Rósa Arianna "Rose" McGowan is an American actress and activist. After her film debut in a brief role in the comedy Encino Man (1992), McGowan achieved wider recognition for her performance in the dark comedy The Doom Generation (1995), receiving an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Debut Performance. She 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, McGowan became known to television audiences for her role as Paige Matthews in The WB supernatural drama series Charmed (2001–2006). She went on to star in Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's double-feature film Grindhouse (2007), for which she was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actress and the Scream Award for Best Scream Queen. She played the role of Josie Acosta in the action-thriller series Chosen (2014).

In 2017, Time recognized McGowan as one of the Silence Breakers, the magazine's Person of the Year, for speaking out about a sexual assault and harassment, specifically in regard to the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases and the Me Too movement. She released a memoir, Brave, and starred in the four-part documentary series Citizen Rose in 2018. Rósa Arianna McGowan was born on September 5, 1973, in Florence, Italy, to American parents Daniel McGowan, an artist, and Terri, a writer. 

She has two 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 the 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.

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 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 the 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. She 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 her revealing fishnet outfit at 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 it 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.