ABOUT ELIZA - PERSONAL INFORMATION


Full Name: Eliza Patricia Dushku

Nickname: Duck Shoot (bestowed on her by Kevin Smith)

 

Birthdate: December 30, 1980

Birthplace: Boston Massachusetts 
 

Education: Watertown High Graduate

 

Siblings: Three older brothers

 

Hair: Brunette
 

Eyes: Dark Brown

 

Height: "I'm 5'9" - OK, fine 5'8 1/2". OK, really I'm at a lovely medium, that's all I'll say."

Favorites

Color: Black 

Book: The Godfather & The Poisonwood Bible (by Barbara Kingsolver) 

Movie: Beaches (1999)

TV Show:  " when he's being good. I'm dying to get on that show. I also watch I'm kind of nocturnal. I love Conan. He's the bomb. I love Howard Stern Ally McBeal, it's cool and smart. I've always loved The Simpsons. They are such a funky family."

Music: "...just about everything...Beastie Boys, Lenny Kravitz, Lauryn Hill, Madonna, Korn. I love it all." 

Sport: Girls Ice Hockey, New England Patriots

Actor: Robert De Niro. "When I saw Analyze This, and I couldn't keep my eyes off him. He's great. I loved Shakespeare in Love, too, and thought the whole cast in that was amazing."

Movie: "I like a lot of different stuff. I like comedies. Horror sketches me out."

Fast Food: Big Mac Extra Value Meal.

About Eliza

•    Eliza's middle name came from being named after her favorite aunt.

•    The tattoo on her right arm that we saw in her role as Faith is not real, but she wants to get a tribute tattoo on her hip when she is 21, for a family member who passed away.  She really enjoys traveling ("when you travel, you can do whatever you want") and dancing.

•    She's "dying to go to the Caribbean or on some cruise." So far, her favourite place is Bondi Beach in New South Wales, Australia, where she did Race the Sun..

•    She had a German shepherd/husky/beagle mix named Korbit, who lives in Utah because dogs are not allowed in her L.A. apartment . She gave him away after he snapped from too much traveling and bit two wardrobe ladies ("I think I'm still a felon in the city of Chicago.")

•    She also has "five little fish that are easy to take care of, and they don't bug me."

•     Now, she has a Golden-Retreiver named Max Factor and a chocolate lab/pitbull mix named Coco Chanel, "so none of y'all better be rustling in my bushes".

•    She drives a black Mercedes CLK500 convertible and she was driving a 1989 Jeep when she arrived in LA.  NEW!!

•    She recently bought a 3,000-square-foot house in Laurel Canyon, a Spanish-style bungalow once owned by Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane.   NEW!!

•    Her last name is pronounced (Dush-koo) - Dush rhymes with "push".

•    Kevin Smith gave her the nickname Duck Shoot during Jay and Silent Bob strike back production after accidentally mispronouncing her last name.

•    Not one to spend money needlessly, Eliza never shops on Rodeo Drive, preferring instead to buy her clothes at the Target -- she pronounces it "tar-ZHAY" -- on Santa Monica Boulevard, and at a couple of trendy boutiques on La Brea Avenue: American Rag and Bleu.   NEW!!

•    Eliza 'must' smoke a cigarette before a scene.

•    She always takes the back of her 'director's chair' after a shoot (as a souvenir). 

•    Eliza slams plastic surgery.  She has blasted Hollywood for pressurising young stars into having plastic surgery, something she would never do, and refuses to have her body operated on for aesthetic purposes, instead believing a strict diet and exercise regime should be encouraged. About that, she says, "I'm not getting Botox or a boob job. Hollywood is a very cosmetic city and people always commenting on looks can be overwhelming and wacky. But exercise and diet is a better option than surgery." 

•    She is scared of the death, of flying (“I've been known to not get on a plane without a cross - even though I'm not religious) and of spiders. 

•    Eliza fears flying and she never travels without religious artifacts. She hates soaring through the skies and takes a crucifix on planes to comfort her. She says, "I get very religious whenever I fly. I can't fly without a cross and I feel a little bit like a poser. I'm always sporting that cross because the prayers start when the plane takes off and they end when we land... until the next time. I think me and God are pretty cool, you know? I'm going to heaven, baby. I might stop off and visit a few friends in hell first, but I'm staying on the train and taking it upstairs for sure." 

•    Eliza was left devastated while vacationing in South Africa two years ago, when she saw a man die in front of her. She was visiting the nation with her mother, Judy, when tragedy struck, and they were left in a state of shock after witnessing one man's demise. Eliza recalls, "Two years ago my mother and I went to South Africa. There was a strike, people were protesting in the streets and there was one crazy man, really drunk, who had blood on his face. He was running through the crowd, fell on the ground and smashed his head. It was like you see in a movie, the blood just spread all over the floor. It was really intense, my stomach was just in my feet. It was pretty awful." 

•    Eliza has started a new project with her father to help Camp Hale (a summer camp that has been giving inner-city Boston boys a chance to experience life away from the streets since 1900 and where the Dushku family are closely implicated): the Eliza Dushku Foundation. Through the sale of props and fan memorabilia, the Dushku is hope to generate increased contributions to continue the tradition of Camp hale for generations to come. 

•    Sometimes she regrets not being able to grow up normal: "I missed a lot of school, so I was tutored. It makes you grow up really fast. You're forced to be an adult. You're too young to be an adult, yet too old to be a kid. I can't say I regret any decisions I've made, but it's been a ride."

•    School, with six movie credits under her belt, was a difficult time for her: .  “High school was a bitch! High school was really hard and I had to become this tough chick. Five years later, I've recovered from high school a little bit and I'm not as angry at the world. Now I'm struggling with other things, like being an adult.” “It is not cute to be an actress in public school in Boston. I may as well have gone around wearing a target on my head, that said 'Kick me'. It got to the stage where I couldn't even wear anything without someone coming up to me and saying something like, "So, where did you buy that? On Hollywood Boulevard Miss Movie Star?" [laughs] It was really hard. I won't lie.” 

•    "It was tough at times. Students would rag on me and so would teachers. I ended up going to a private school my last year of middle school, and it was frustrating because I let it get to me. Leo (DiCaprio) would give me lines and comebacks to use. He would tell me not to let people get me down. When I went back for high school, I loved it. I wouldn't let people do that to me. It was so much fun because of that."    

•    She doesn't believe in vampires. Actually, " I don't really believe in anything I don't see. I have to see it to believe it."

•    Eliza used to live in an apartment with her brother Nate and with the actor Eddie Cahill. She also shared apartment with Claire Krammer (Glory in Buffy).

•    Eliza used to live in Larchmont, L.A., its a neighborhood between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. She referred to it as her 'hood' in the screenplay video for the MTV where she's walking around her local Blockbuster.

•    When asked to give examples of the type of men she likes (in a UK interview) Eliza said construction workers and chimney sweeps, because "I like beer drinking, ball playing guys, like construction workers or chimney sweeps".

•    The first movie Eliza saw in a theatre was Amadeus.

•    At her funeral, Eliza want to be played music of Aretha Franklyn and Bob Marley.

•    On 2003, in a Miami club, Eliza reportedly stripped to her underwear and performed a lapdance for which the supermodel Kylie Bax!  

•    If she were a box of chocolates, she would be "cherry cordials, because I always love how unexpected it is to bite down and get the juice inside"

•    She had a celebrity crush with George Clooney. “He is just super-hot, he's pretty easy on the eyes. But at the same time I don't think I would date me some Clooney. I think the age difference is too hot to handle..."  

•    Eliza started dating guys since she was 15 and she had a couple of long relationships. “Because I was a tomboy I've always loved hanging out with guys, to have that companionship. Doing films, it was nice to have someone from outside who understood you and would come visit and was romantic." "But I was a good girl! It wasn't like I was getting nasty from a young age!"

•    Guys she've dated in the past have been her best friends “and I hope we'll be best friends for years”. And it seems that she is that kind of girls that when is dating someone, spend a lot of time with him… “You forget how much you miss your friends when you're in a relationship because it's so easy to hang out with your man." 

•    Her only confirmed relations were with the Ralph Lauren’s model Colby (2000), with the actor Michael Bortone (2004/2005),  and the All-Star Dodgers' pitcher Brad Penny, but some rumours related her with the singer John Mayer, with Scott Sartiano, the restaurant owner of a restaurant in New York and ex-boyfriend of one of the Olsen twins (one of the gossip columns said they were kissing in a club in the Hamptons in May 2003) and lately with Chris Ovitz, her manager's son and a UCLA student. Now her special friend is Family Guy's Seth Macfarlane.     NEW!!

•    The perfect guy for Eliza “has to be confident yet have humility. I also like guys who have a great amount of self worth and self love. Also, I love a guy who can make me laugh!” 

•    Before going to bed, she always have a shower, “it doesn't matter what state I'm in” 

•    The Eliza Dushku action figure would come with “probably, a posse of people. My favorite thing when I'm not working is...I talk a lot, and I love to be sociable and to be with my family and friends. So the Eliza doll would come with a stadium of people and we'd all have to be really limber so we could dance a lot.”  

•    She was raised  in the Mormon faith, but “I kind of fell out of Mormonism at a young age. My brothers and I were not completely rebellious, but I remember driving to church in the minivan on Sunday--church is three hours long if you're Mormon--we would stop at a red light, throw open the slider [door] and run for the hills. My mother would be screaming!” 

•    The maddest rumour she'd ever heard about herself is “that I was dating both Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. I wasn't but that's one sandwich I wouldn't mind being in!” 

•    She “absolutely” wants children “I love kids for sure. My mom had me when she was 40 and that was a big mistake, huge, (laughs) but it turned out ok and I love that she's older. She's so wise and so knowledgeable. I'm definitely gonna wait until 30, because I want to have my 20's for me.”  

•    In her spare time, she likes travelling, singing (she was sawn in a karaoke in Vancouver in 2003 playing the Madonna’s song Like a prayer) and acting as tour guide for her friends: “I have a lot of friends who come out to visit me, I am the tour guide, I'm a big socializer, going to the beach, the pier, the nightlight. I love to sing, my landlord gets a lot of complaints. My favorite thing in the world is to travel, I've been to Asia and Europe  and Ireland and everywhere.” “I don't really shop that much. I just can't see myself going out and dropping $3,000 on a shirt my dog might eat tomorrow. I'd rather go to Jamaica and get certified to scuba dive with my brother and go to a reggae show.” "I use to go to Venice Beach with my brother. You see the craziest people there. This guy wanted me to sit on his back while he walked across broken glass, then they have a 300-man drum session and 50 people Hula Hooping..."

•    About places she’ve travelled to, “I loved Amsterdam, it was definitely a great time. I was there with family for new years and it rocked. I loved Australia, the people are great. I was in Ecuador in the jungle and it was the coolest thing I've ever seen. Greece was the first trip I've been on. “”While traveling in China, I really liked Beijing were we first flew in, Shanghais was really cool but then we went to some really remote places as well. It was kind of cool because we were the only Americans who had ever gone in there, we felt different walking in the streets of these villages in inner-Mongolia where we were definitely out of our element but I kind of like that.” “So far, my favorite place is Australia--Bondi Beach in New South Wales, Sydney. I did a film there called Race the Sun.” 

•    While she was in the UK on April/2004, Eliza saw in this order, these three plays/musicals:

- We will rock you

- Romeo and Juliet

- When Harry met Sally

•    When she was younger, she wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer or a teacher, but she never wanted to be an actress. 

•    When Eliza was given a Faith statuette to sign at the London Expo (2004), she said that it reminded her of in a creepy way the film Boxing Helena. 

•    She almost died in a near plane crash, coming home from Amsterdam ("We hit an air pocket over the ocean, and dropped 30,000 feet in one big swoop. Food started flying, and all the women starting saying Hail Marys."

•    She loves Venice Beach. The bohemian boardwalk is special to Dushku because it's among the first places she visited when she arrived here. On Sundays, she and her agent, JoAnne Colonna, would rent in-line skates and go up and down the esplanade.    NEW!!

•    One of her favorites is Zuma Beach, 20 miles up the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. It's also close to one of Dushku's favorite restaurants, the Reel Inn, an unaffected seafood shack where she brings friends from Boston: "You pick your fish and your sides, and then you sit at a picnic table and drink a cold Corona," says Dushku. "The last time I was there, we went to the Santa Monica Pier afterward, and took a ride on the Ferris wheel. Sounds kind of cheesy, I know, but it's so much fun.    NEW!!

•    Eliza has a production company named Boston Diva, that is producing her new movie The Alphabet Killer and the upcoming show Dollhouse.    NEW!!

 

 

About Her Family

•    She's Albanian and Danish.  

•    She was legally emancipated from her parents because of strict laws on the hours that a minor is allowed to work.

•    Raised in a staunch Mormon household.  

•    Her Dushku family were the only family with that surname in America in 1920, and were living in Massachusetts.

•    Her mother, Judy, is a university  administrator/professor at Suffolk University. Her father, Philip, is an administrator/teacher in the Boston Public Schools and a member of the Camp Hale Alumni Assotiation's Executive Committe . They divorced before she was born.

•    Describing her mother - a college professor in Boston - as the biggest influence on her life, Eliza notes with admiration that She believes in herself, she's the coolest lady, explaining that her mother has been in Romania for the past several months writing a book on the conditions there.

•    Eliza loves hanging with family and friends. "I love my family, my fam is the greatest. Any chance I can get to see them, is the coolest thing." 

•    While on location, Eliza takes her bed linen so she feels comfortable. She also surrounds herself with pictures of family ans friends (all quite understandable really). 

•    Eliza's been a John Kerry supporter since age 10 when she met him at an airport. "He's my Massachusetts man,'' she use to say about him.


About Her Works


•    Appeared in Simple Plan's "I'm Just a Kid" and Nickleback's "Rockstar"music videos.  

•    Appeared in Tobey Maguire's screen test on the "Spider-Man" DVD.  

•    She says the line Bring it on to Shannon Elizabeth. 

•    Modeled for makeup cosmetics in InStyle Magazine (2002).  

•    When she was eleven years old, she landed the lead role of the Lord High Executioner in the musical, "The Mikado" .

•    She appeared in her first Australian commercial when she was 12.

•    When in school, Dushku said that she and her friends made oaths that they would never become cheerleaders.

•    Though she played her fair share of football as a kid, she came to the Bring It On film with no gymnastics, dancing or cheerleading experience. In order to play cheerleaders who take their athletics seriously, the cast went through several weeks of intensive cheerleading camp in order to be able to perform the difficult and demanding routines required by the script.

•    Her favourite role is a 'toss-up between Buffy and True Lies.' "I'm an adrenaline junkie--I love taking risks. It's kind of a tie between those."

•    Eliza regrets the day she ever invited her best pal on the set of 1994 movie True Lies to meet Arnold because he terrified her to the point of tears. Eliza thought it would be fun to invite her best friend Alison to the film set and meet the muscle-clad Arnie, but his antics soon had her bawling with tears. She recalls, "When Alison came into the trailer, Arnold was all in his wardrobe and he said, 'Let's get in my Hummer and let's go to Planet Hollywood right now.' We got in his Hummer and as we're nearing Planet Hollywood, Arnold busts up on the curb and starts chasing tourists and pedestrians down the sidewalk with his head out the window. He was trying to amuse the children, I guess. We ate a meal and then he ordered this dessert plate with every dessert on it. Alison was really nervous and couldn't speak, so he was trying to loosen her up. There was this big piece of German chocolate cake and he says, 'Alison, this cake smells like lemon to me. It's really strange because it looks like chocolate.' He's like, 'Smell this,' and so she really nervously gets up and he stuffs it all in her face. She was legitimately terrified. She ran to the bathroom crying. Arnold was like, 'I was trying to make friends.'"

•    When Eliza was 14, a present from  Arnold Schwarzenegger sent her to hospital, when she crashed the bike California Governor had bought her. Arnie presented with the scooter when shooting wrapped on the pair's 1994 action film True Lies, but failed to realise Eliza was too young to use it. Eliza's mum made sure Schwarzenegger was informed of the trouble he'd inadvertently caused when her daughter's adventures on the bike ended in disaster. She says, "He bought me a little motorised Go-Ped thing. I don't think anyone made it clear that maybe they weren't made for 14-year-olds. My best friend and I ended up getting hit by a car and my mum called Arnold from the hospital - he sent a huge bunch of flowers."

•    Playing Sissy in Jay and Silent Bob strikes back, her stunt double was Sarah Michelle Gellar's stunt double the entire season Eliza was on Buffy, where she was always fighting her because they'd always put an actor with an stunt double.  

•    Eliza recalls how she is 'forever grateful' to Leonardo DiCaprio for teaching her to deal with bullies and petty jealousy from fellow classmates.

•    Kevin Smith wrote the role of Maya, in Jersey Girl, "with Eliza in mind, initially. We went with Liv, though, as Eliza would've looked more like Ben's daughter than girlfriend (she's pretty tiny)."

•    The original plan for Eliza's Maxim photoshoot (which she refused to do, thankfully) was for her to be topless with CDs covering her breasts.

•    Eliza's favorite three episodes of Tru Calling season 1 are The Longest Day, Murder in the morgue and Two weddings and a funeral.

•    Eliza once said her dream role would be to play Hedy Lamarr, a 1940's Hollywood actress. 

•    When she did True Lies she lived in Oakwood (Hollywood's secret Munchkinland) apartments where all the child actors live. "Everyone was there, Leo DiCaprio - all these kids you see now, we used to hang out in the Jacuzzi at Oakwood. You'd see them on (US TV Series) 'Growing Pains' or 'Family Ties'," “It's a big community, you don't have to leave - there's a little convenience store and activities. The pool scene is all kids from the industry."

•    Her favourite Faith moment was in Enemies, when Faith got jacked by Angel. “She was riding high, and then she got dogged. She's so cocky. I love her 'cause I play her, but she's so cocky. She got played. She got beat in her own game.” 

•    In Buffy, she like kissing the best D.B. Woodside [Principal Wood]. About kissing Nicholas Brendon or David Boreanaz, “it's a toss-up. When I had to kiss David, he had these vampire teeth. With both of them being 10 times older than me, and me having to rape Nick and David with those teeth...I'd have to say it's a toss-up.”  

•    She had a bad time while kissing first time D avid Boreanaz: “He had the vampire teeth in and I didn't know we weren't supposed to really kiss, so I went for it, I'm method; what do you want? (laugh) We're kissing and that tooth went right through my tongue and I was just, 'If this is a long shot can we take his teeth out 'cause my tongue just got like punctured.' Everyone was quiet and the director was like, 'Wow, so you're really using the tongue, huh Eliza?' and I was like, 'What do you mean? Buffy doesn't kiss like that?' (laughs) It's a little embarrassing to be honest.” 

•    About kissing Nicholas Brendon, she always says that “It was bizarre, because he's in his late 20s and I was 17 at the time. He's, like, 10 years older. I felt like I was going after one of my older brother's friends. It was mainly just a riot with everyone yelling, "Seventeen will get you 20." It was more comical than anything else.” 

•    Eliza auditioned for T3 and Save the last dance though, she actually complimented Julia Stiles on how good she was in Save the last dance and she said she lost the T3 role to Sophia Bush (who eventually dropped out to be replaced with Claire Danes).

•    She was almost cast as the love interest to Sean Astin in The Final Season and word got around that she was already cast, confirming her involvement to the extent the crew assembled a wardrobe for her. However, it was later confirmed that she had lost the part to Rachael Leigh Cook, her coworker in Yakuza, after one last audition


 

About Her Beauty

•    Voted the 9th Sexiest Female Movie Star in the Australian Empire Magazine on September 2002. 

•    She ranked #93 (2001), #58 (2002) and #48 (2003) in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women.

•    She ranked #76 (2002) and #28 (2003)  in FHM-USA's 100 Sexiest Women.

•    She ranked #80 (2000), #10 (2001), #10 (2001) and #13 (2002) in Maxim's 100 Sexiest Women.

•    She ranked #41 in Maxim's Cover Girls.

•    She ranked #47 (summer 2003) in Status Worlds Top 100 Female.

•    She ranked #44 (2000), #13 (2001), #28 (2002) and #63 (2003) in Stuff's Sexiest Women.

•    She ranked #15 (2000) in Entertainment Weekly's It List.

•    She ranked #15 (2003) in Femme Fatale's 50 Sexiest Women.

•    She ranked #7 (2003) in SFX Appeal - Top 20 Sexiest Women and Men 

•    She ranked #26 (2004) in FHM-UK's 100 Sexiest Women

•    She ranked #22 (2004) in FHM-US's 100 Sexiest Women

•    She ranked #41 (2004) in FHM-Germany's 100 Sexiest Women

•    She ranked #4 (2004) in the Top 25 Sexiest Women in Sci-Fi.

•    She ranked #63 (2005) in the Top 99 Most Desirable Women in AskMen.com.

•    She ranked #46 (2005) in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women.