Rosario Dawson to Star in USA Network Pilot ‘Briarpatch’

By Joe Otterson

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Rosario Dawson has been cast in the lead role in the USA Network drama pilot “Briarpatch,” Variety has learned.

The series is based on the Ross Thomas novel of the same name. Dawson will play Allegra “Pick” Dill, a tenacious and highly-skilled investigator working in Washington, DC for a young, ambitious Senator. When her ten-years-younger sister, a homicide detective, is killed by a car bomb, Allegra returns to her corrupt Texas hometown. What begins as a search for the murderer becomes a fraught and dangerous excavation of the past Allegra has long sought to bury.

In addition to starring, Dawson will also serve as producer.

Should the project get picked up to series, it would mark Dawson’s first starring role on a network television series. She currently appears as Claire Temple in the Marvel-Netflix universe, having appeared in “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones,” “Luke Cage,” “Iron Fist,” and “The Defenders.” Dawson is best known for her film work, having starred in movies like “The 25th Hour,” “Sin City,” “Rent,” and “Unstoppable.”

Dawson is also an activist lending her time to a range of influential organizations, most notably Voto Latino, which she co-founded in 2004 to help empower Latino millennials to vote and influence change in government. She is repped by CAA Untitled Entertainment, and The Lede Company.

Andy Greenwald adapted “Briarpatch” for television and will executive produce along with “Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail through his production company Esmail Corp and Anonymous Content’s Chad Hamilton. Universal Cable Productions and Paramount Television will produce.