Eliza Dushku, Faith No More? Part Two

BUFFY's Faith discusses the possibility of a return to slaying

By P. MACDOUGAL     May 28, 2002

Best known to genre fans as Faith, that other slayer on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, Eliza Dushku has actually had a lengthy acting career considering her young age. Before nailing the role of Faith, the tough-fighting, hard-living, take-no-prisoners slayer, she had roles in a variety of projectsnot the least of which was as Arnold Schwarzenegger's daughter in TRUE LIES. Today we continue our talk with the actress.



The character of Faith has not been seen in the Buffy universe for some time now, though there has often been rumor of the character's return to the show. According to Dushku though, rumor is pretty much all there's been on that front.

"There's been talk about that, yeah," she say. "People talk, I can see it more and more."

It's a different story in terms of official chatter however.

"Not so much [official talk]," she continues. "It's hard because I am trying to do films more, just because... just because that's what I've been in and it's just kind of more my rhythm and what I like. And you have to shoot episodes so far down the road, so you have to commit. And say I'm committing now to shoot in September... it's hard to put that, to sign up for something like that because you don't know if a film's gonna come along. Because a film will go, 'Alright, we want you in a week.' There's been some scheduling problems, [but] you know, I would like to go back eventually."



Regular viewers of BUFFY and ANGEL will recall that the dark side of Faith was slowly revealed during her time on the show in BUFFY's third season, with Faith eventually becoming a full-fledged bad guy. They will also remember, however, that the last time we saw the character on ANGEL she had begun on the slow road to recovery and atonement for her sins. Despite this, Dushku does not see the character becoming any "softer" if she were to return to either show.

"I'm sure they wouldn't want me to be [soft]," she says, pointing out that personally the actress herself has less of an edge than she did back then. "They'd have me in the prison yard, cutting people up. That scares me! I look back and I'm like, 'How horrifying!' What a little, evil... you-know-what I was. I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, who am I?' Because it's weird when you change so much in a year. I mean, I'm not miss doctor or psychologist about it, but I can definitely feel it. I can feel that I'm just in a different place than I was then. And I'm so much less defensive and angry [than] I was when I was doing that."

"I remember I used to wear my tattoo home from the set. They'd be like, 'We can take that off for you.' I'd be like, 'No! Leave it on!' And I'd go around and I'd like wait for people to look at me funny and I'd hold my tattoo out like a big, tough girl," she laughs. "But I'm a lot more chill now."



Dushku reveals that there are plenty of other genre projects aside from BUFFY, and that she in fact did a screen testof sortsfor one of the biggest: SPIDER-MAN.

"It was Toby [Maguire]'s screen test actually," she says. "And it was just... I worked with Toby on THIS BOY'S LIFE and he called me up and was like, 'I'm doing this screen test,' and, 'I really want this role and I need somebody to read with me.' And he was like, 'Will you come in? It will be fun. It's supposed to be the biggest screen test of all time and there's gonna be some stunt stuff, and would you be down to come in and do that?' And I was like, 'Absolutely'. So I went in and [did it]. It wasn't really about me. It was just, we went in and we did a couple scenes and they had him on the ropes and doing all this stuff."

And after all the movie roles, and TV spots, and auditions, and magazine covers, Dushkuever the tomboyhas her toys.

"Oh gosh, I loved TRANSFORMERS and G.I. JOE and STAR WARS figures [as a kid]," she says. "I have the Darth Vader STAR WARS figure box, where you can hold all your figures. That thing was awesome. And I used to talk behind the fan and make him talk. My mom would like beg me to play with Barbies and I'd cut their hair off and like break their heads off. I'd make G.I. JOE blow them up."

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