**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
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### 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.[*dated info*]

### Personal life

Dushku lives in the Los Angeles area of Southern California.

Filmography
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* *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
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* *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

Other websites
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to ***Eliza Dushku***.

* Eliza Dushku on IMDb

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