Rosario Dawson is living separately from her boyfriend, Cory Booker, amid the coronavirus quarantine. ET's Ash Crossan spoke to the 40-year-old actress via video chat, and she revealed why the lengthy time apart was a necessary evil.
"We are so many thousands of miles apart. It's so challenging," she said, before revealing she's taking care of both of her high-risk parents, while Booker is busy in Washington, D.C.
"That was sort of the dedication during this quarantine to take care of [my dad], while [Cory] was still in D.C. working on the stimulus package," she said.
Dawson also shared that she and the 50-year-old New Jersey senator were supposed to have their "longest vacation ever" this month, though it has been postponed indefinitely.
"He's been campaigning the whole year and it was just only a couple of months since we started dating. So we've not really had a really good chunk of time together because of our work and our family and all the other things," she explained. "It ended up being what was supposed to be our longest time together, [is] now our longest period apart from each other. So, that's definitely been really challenging."
As for when the couple can reunite, Dawson said that it was supposed to be this summer, but even that is up in the air now.
"We just gotta make really careful decisions about moving... Both of my parents are high risk, so I just want to do anything and everything we can in this next year or year and a half, whatever period it is, of just being as safe as possible," she said. "It's hard to think about when we are going to be flying again and doing anything that was planned. Like plans, what are those? We're just taking it every day at a time."
Since the start of their relationship, Booker has been as supportive of Dawson's acting career as she has been of his political one.
"He marathoned all of Jane the Virgin. He's seen every episode just because he wanted to see the last two seasons with me," she revealed. "So it's been very sweet. He's been very encouraging and very supportive."
"He's just a good, really good guy through and through," she added. "To see him, and witness him, and love him through such incredible, powerful stages in his life in just this past year... [it's] been amazing to see how his energy is just unwavering. It's powerful."
Their mutual support has continued through quarantine, where they've been watching her USA series, Briarpatch, and she's been spreading the word about his work in D.C.
"We've been watching Briarpatch and kind of catching up with each other on it, and different shows," she said. "[I've been] trying to catch him on the press that he's doing and spread the information that he has for folks to get access to funds and benefits from the stimulus package. And continuing to push for the Census and other things together."
On the show, the actress plays Allegra Dill, an investigator who, like in Dawson's real life, dates a senator who's running for president.
"When the show was first starting to do press, I sat and talked with [Cory's] chief of staff and everyone [was] going, 'What are the correlations here and things?' And I was like, 'Well, besides the fact that the senator in the show speaks Spanish, and is a senator, and we're having an affair, and he's also running for president, there's no similarities whatsoever,'" she quipped, before adding the show's senator "has a much darker side" than Booker.
Dawson's beau watched the series each week and even complained about having to wait to uncover each of its twists and turns.
"Cory is the worst about having to wait for stuff. He's so addicted to binge-watching something, and just being able to watch [quickly]," she said. "The fact that he'd have to wait every week to watch another episode of Briarpatch was driving him crazy. It was so cute to watch. He'd try to milk me for answers to try to find out stuff. It was like, 'No, it's the suspense. It's about the suspense.'"
Now that the first season has wrapped, Dawson is happy with the conclusion, but also excited about the possibility of season two.
"I'm glad that this story ends in a way that I think is gonna be super satisfying. It's been a puzzle... Even if you think you understand the puzzle, just the way that it even unravels is really powerful," she said. "So I hope that we get to do it again, but, if not, I'm really, really proud of what we created."
All 10 episodes of Briarpatch are available to stream now.
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