With a diverse range of movie and TV roles comes a smattering of beauty looks, which happens to be one of Dawson's favourite parts of the filming process. "I've gotten to do really extreme character stuff — where I'm in prosthetics or being really degraded because I'm playing someone with a drug addiction or whatever it may be — and then other times it's a clean vibe like in Jane the Virgin or a sexy vibe like in Sin City," she said.
"But I've never totally connected to the power of a character before more than with this role I'm playing right now for a show I'm producing for USA called Briarpatch. The director had this very particular idea of me coming off of the plane in this white power suit thrown over my shoulders and long hair. She kept sending me pictures of Bianca Jagger and saying, 'This is what you have to look like.' At first I was going, 'This doesn't make any sense. She's going back for her sister's funeral. They're going to this sleepy town in Texas. Yes, she works for a senator and she lives in DC now, but if she was going down for her sister's funeral, she'll probably want to look more like she did at home.' Then we were watching it later and it was like, 'Damn, I look pretty fly. I've been getting off planes wrong my whole life.' That made me feel good."