Eliza Patricia Dushku (born December 30, 1980) is an Albanian-American actress who has appeared in several Hollywood movies such as Bring It On and Wrong Turn. She is also well known for her acting on television, such as her recurring appearances on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel as Faith, as well as the main character in the series Tru Calling.
Dushku was born in Watertown, Massachusetts to Philip Dushku (an Albanian-American administrator and teacher) and Judy (a Danish-American university professor); she was raised in the LDS Church, the faith of her mother (though she is not actively practicing). She has three older brothers, Aaron, Ben, and Nate, the last of whom is also an actor. Dushku lives in the Los Angeles area.
Dushku came to the attention of casting agents when she was 10. Along with her brother, she went to a commercial audition where she tripped on the stairs, bloodied her nose, and became an instant drama queen. She was chosen at the end of a five month search throughout the United States for the lead role of Alice, opposite Juliette Lewis in the film That Night. In 1993, Dushku landed a role as Pearl alongside Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in This Boy's Life, a role that she said opened a lot of doors. Dushku says that DiCaprio taught her how to deal with bullies and other high school dangers, for which she is grateful.
The following year, she played the teenage daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies. She would also have 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 film.
Dushku took some time off from acting to finish her junior and senior years of high school. She was accepted to the George Washington University in Washington, DC and Suffolk University in Boston, where her mother serves as professor of government and previously served as dean of the campus in Dakar, Senegal.
After completing high school, Eliza returned to acting with the role of Faith, a Slayer much more troubled than the main character Buffy. Though initially planned as a five episode role, the character became so popular that she stayed on for the entirety of the third season and returned for a two-part appearance in season four and the last five episodes of season seven. She has also made guest appearances in Buffy's spin-off, Angel.
Because of her convincing role as a sociopath, she became an icon to many criminals. She was inundated with piles of fan mail from legions of prisoners. She said that:
I've been getting fan mail from maximum security penitentiaries and death row. What are the authorities thinking of in playing a show with young teenage girls to Death Row inmates? They write everything — disgusting things that you don't even want to know about. And they send me pictures — 'Oh, here's a picture of me before I was incarcerated!' — and there's some guy sat on the sofa with a bottle of beer and a moustache, and a big gut. It's so creepy. Way more creepy than Buffy.
In 2000, Dushku starred in Soul Survivors, reuniting her with Casey Affleck (they co-starred in 'Race The Sun'). She followed that up with the cheerleader comedy Bring It On with Kirsten Dunst, which was a surprising success at the box office that spawned straight-to-DVD sequels. 2001 saw a busy time for Eliza - shooting The New Guy in Texas and having to shuttle up to New York where she was reunited 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 film garnered attention from a wider adult audience and several good reviews.
The same year Kevin Smith invited Dushku to be a part of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where Eliza co-starred with Shannon Elizabeth, Ali Larter, Ben Affleck, and others.
2003 saw the release of Wrong Turn, a horror film in which Eliza 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, where she played the main character, Tru Davies, a medical student whose grant is pulled out from under her, forcing her to take a job at a local morgue. There, she discovers that she has the power to "re-live" the previous day over again, an ability she used to right wrongful deaths. She also attempts to help her troubled family - a drug-addicted sister and a gambling-addicted brother.
Eliza starred in an off-Broadway production entitled Dog Sees God from December 2005, playing 'Van's sister', a character paralleled with Lucy from original Peanuts comic strip that the play production is based on. She quit in February 2006 along with several other members of the cast after alleged abuse from the producer.
On October 1, 2005, she announced at Wizard World Boston that shooting had begun for Nobel Son (to be released in 2006), in which she will star with Alan Rickman, Danny DeVito, Bill Pullman, and Peter Boyle. She is also set to star in the upcoming baseball movie The Final Season.
It was also announced on June 16, 2006, that Eliza would voice the role of Yumi for the upcoming English translation of the PlayStation 2 videogame Yakuza by SEGA. The game is scheduled for release in September 2006.
Dushku has started a new project with her father to help Camp Hale, a summer camp for inner-city Boston boys open since 1900, where the Dushku family are closely involved: the Eliza Dushku Foundation. Through the sale of props and fan memorabilia, the Dushkus hope to generate increased contributions in order to pay for the maintenance of Camp Hale for generations to come.
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