Eliza Dushku

Eliza Patricia Dushku (born December 30, 1980) is an American television and movie actress. She has appeared in several Hollywood movies such as True Lies, The New Guy, Bring It On, and Wrong Turn. She is also well known for her acting on television, such as her role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel as Faith. She was also the main character in the series Tru Calling.
Biography
Early life
Dushku was born in Watertown, Massachusetts. Dushku's father is Albanian-American and her mother has Danish ancestry. She was raised a Mormon, the faith of her mother but she is not actively practicing. She has three older brothers, Aaron, Benjamin (Ben) (born February 5, 1976), and Nathan (Nate) (born June 8, 1977, in Boston, Massachusetts), the last of whom is also an actor and a model. Her parents divorced when she was still an infant.
Early career
Dushku started acting when she was 10. She was chosen for the lead role of Alice, opposite Juliette Lewis in the movie That Night. In 1993, Dushku got the role as Pearl in This Boy's Life, alongside Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. The following year, she played the teenage daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies. She also had parts as Paul Reiser's daughter in Bye Bye, Love, as Cindy Johnson with Halle Berry and Jim Belushi in Race the Sun, as well as roles in a television movie and a short movie.
Dushku took some time off from acting to finish her last two years of high school. She was accepted to the George Washington University in Washington, DC and Suffolk University in Boston, where her mother was professor of government and had been the dean of the campus in Dakar, Senegal.
Later roles
After high school, Dushku returned to acting with the role of Faith, a Slayer much more troubled than the main character Buffy. At first, her character was only going to be used for five episodes but became so popular that Joss Whedon decided to use her for more of the story. She stayed on for the rest of the third season and returned for a two-part appearance in season four. She was then used as part of the first season of the Buffy spinoff series Angel. Faith returned as a heroine in several other episodes of Angel and in the last five episodes of Buffy.
In 2000, Dushku starred in Soul Survivors with her Race The Sun co-star Casey Affleck. She followed that up with the cheerleader comedy Bring It On with Kirsten Dunst. She was very busy in 2001: shooting The New Guy in Texas and having to travel up to New York where she was working again with actor Robert De Niro and director Michael Caton-Jones in City by the Sea. She played James Franco's junkie girlfriend and mother of his child. The same year Kevin Smith asked Dushku to be a part of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Dushku co-starred with Shannon Elizabeth, Ali Larter, Ben Affleck, and others.
2003 saw the release of Wrong Turn, a horror movie in which Dushku had the starring role, and The Kiss, an independent comedy-drama. Starting that same year, she also starred in a new Fox TV series, Tru Calling. She played the main character, Tru Davies, a ex-medical student who must take a job at a local morgue where she finds that she has the power to "re-live" the previous day over again. She uses this ability to stop wrongful deaths.
She appeared in the Simple Plan music video, "I'm Just a Kid", as the band's love interest, as well as Nickelback's video for "Rockstar".
Future roles
Variety announced on August 2, 2006 that Dushku would co-star with Macaulay Culkin in Sex and Breakfast, written and directed by Miles Brandman. The movie will be released in Los Angeles on November 30, 2007 and on DVD on January 22, 2008. She will also star in Open Graves, a horror-thriller movie about a satanic game. The movie is expected to be released in 2007. She will play the main character on a thriller directed by Rob Schmidt who she had worked with before on Wrong Turn, called The Alphabet Killer.
It was announced on October 31, 2007 that Dushku and Joss Whedon agreed to create a new show called Dollhouse. FOX has already ordered seven episodes and the series is expected to premiere in April.
Personal life
Dushku lives in the Los Angeles area of Southern California.
Filmography
That Night (1992) - Alice Bloom
This Boy's Life (1993) - Pearl
Fishing With George (1994)
True Lies (1994) - Dana Tasker
Bye Bye Love (1995) - Emma Carlson
Journey (1995, TV) - Cat
Race the Sun (1996) - Cindy Johnson
Bring It On (2000) - Missy Pantone
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) - Sissy
Soul Survivors (2001) - Annabel
The New Guy (2002) - Danielle
City by the Sea (2002) - Gina
Wrong Turn (2003) - Jessie Burlingame
Punk'd (2003) - Herself
The Kiss (2003) - Megan
The Last Supper (2006) - Waitress
Yakuza (2006, Video Game) - Yumi Sawamura (voice)
On Broadway (2007) - Lena Wilson
Nobel Son (2007) - Sharon "City" Hall
Open Graves (2007) - Erica
The Alphabet Killer (2007) - Megan Paige
Bottle Shock (2008)
Sex and Breakfast (2008) - Renee
"Untitled Harley Quinn Project " (Announced) - Batgirl
TV series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1998-1999, 2000, 2003 recurring) - Faith Lehane (20 episodes)
Angel (2000, 2003 guest appearances) - Faith Lehane (6 episodes)
King of the Hill (2002) - Jordan (voice) in episode 'Get Your Freak Off'
Tru Calling (2003-2005) - Tru Davies (27 episodes)
Reading Rainbow (2005 guest appearance) - Narrator of episode 'Unique Monique'
That '70s Show (2005 guest appearance) - Sarah
Nurses (2007) - Eve Morrow (Pilot)
Ugly Betty (2007 guest appearance) - unknown
Dollhouse (2008) - Echo
References
Other websites
1980 births
Living people
American movie actors
Actors from Massachusetts
American television actors
Whedonverse