Eliza Dushku

Talent

"I like being the centre of attention."

Eliza Dushku

Buffy’s sidekick Faith takes a turn for the better

Just so you know, it’s pronounced "DOOSH-koo". Not "Dooku". Nor "Daush-koo. And certainly not "Duckshoot", the name given her by Kevin Smith on the set of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. That damned surname has haunted Eliza Dushku all her life. "There was a two-year period growing up where any name-calling just hurts." Says the 23 year-old actress. "But for those two years, all the name changes and name-calling absolutely ripped my heart out, and I’d go home and scream at my mother for letting me have that name. And then after a while you’re just. "Who cares?"

Still brave is the man who would call Dushku "Duckshoot" to her face; this after all, is the dark-haired temptress who, as nasty Faith in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, slammed a stake into Sarah Michelle Gellar’s popularity with that all-important male teen demo. Fierce independence and a take-no-shit sexuality have been her tools since: witness her turn in Bring It On, as Kirsten Dunst’s surly Goth enemy-turned-fellow cheerleader, or her catsuit romp in the aforementioned Smith stoner comedy.

Even when playing Arnie’s daughter in 1994’s True Lies, she was happier running off with some dude on a bike instead of studying. "I purely attribute my hamming-it-up quality to growing up with three older brothers and just being, like, a tomboy my whole life", she says. "I really was just kind of a guy’s girl, and just kind of an outspoken - some could say obnoxious - in-your-face kid."

Now, though, Buffy has gone to that great big hellmouth in the sky. Faith no more? Damn straight. Not that Dushku is putting the rebellious streak to one side. A new TV series, Tru Calling, is on the agenda, while the spirit of Faith lives on in this month’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre rip-off/homage, Wrong Turn.

Hollywood’s new Scream Queen? Perhaps, but Jamie Lee Curtis never kicked this much ass. Not that Duckshoot - sorry. Dushku - minds. "I can think of a lot worse things to be typecast as than a strong woman who stands up for herself", she tells Front Row. And we believe her. Or we’ll start counting the bruises.