In a world where movies are ruled by young-adult dystopias and ’80s action heroes, it’s jarring to hear there’s one coming down the pike about . . . the United Farm Workers organization?
But then you realize “Cesar Chavez,” out Friday, co-stars Rosario Dawson, and it starts to make sense.
The 34-year-old New York native is second only to Angelina Jolie when it comes to blending Hollywood glamour and good causes. “This was the first time the [Chavez] family said yes,” Dawson tells The Post of the new movie, the only one that’s been made about the life of the famed labor leader and civil rights activist. “It was the right time, the right people, the right resources. Eighty percent of the financing came from Mexico.”
As does the film’s director, Diego Luna — better known as an actor who’s starred in “Y Tu Mamá También” and “Milk.” Luna’s made a decidedly un-glamorized movie about Chavez’s campaign to unionize farmworkers in California in the 1960s. Alongside Michael Peña (“Gangster Squad”) as Chavez, Dawson plays Dolores Huerta, another activist and leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers. At 83, she still runs a foundation in her name.
“I’m grateful Diego [made] sure women were credited as a huge part of the movement,” says Dawson.
Huerta, an ally of Robert F. Kennedy, also had a relationship with Chavez’s brother. But the movie never delves into romance. “I think there was a conscious decision not to get too into that,” says Dawson, whose own love life has included British director Danny Boyle, in whose movie “Trance” she starred in 2013 (they broke up last year, too). “This was not the film to get into all of those details.”
Dawson, who was discovered on her stoop at the age of 15 by filmmaker Larry Clark, made a splash in his edgy film “Kids” and subsequent movies including “Rent” and “Sin City.” But she’s always kept firmly in mind where she came from: “I grew up in a squat on the Lower East Side,” she says, “when the city was very poor. It’s been interesting to see it swing the other way, but I think it’s time to see it swing back . . . the discrepancy between the classes has never been greater.”
She now splits her time between LA and London but is watching our new mayor with an optimistic eye. “I’m hopeful [Bill] de Blasio will fulfill his promises,” says Dawson, who’s been a campaigner for the Lower Eastside Girls Club, which recently moved into new headquarters with her fundraising help. “The Girls Club was homeless for a lot of years,” she says. “To be able to create a space in that community — when girls are in such crisis — is really exciting.”
She may not be a New Yorker at the moment, but Dawson says she can’t entirely let go. “I still keep my 917 [cellphone] number,” she says. “God forbid I come back and have to take a 347 or a 646!”