Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Eliza Interview (Flashback to 2010)





I've been busy finishing up my novel Sound, to the point where I didn't have time to write a blog this month. A flashback to a 2010 interview with Eliza Dushku will have to do instead!

For those who aren't familiar, Eliza played Faith in Buffy The Vampire Slayer and spin-off series Angel, Tru in Tru Calling, Missy in Bring It On, and Echo in Dollhouse.

It's a transcript (with the last few minutes of casual chitchat left out). Fans of Buffy and Dollhouse should enjoy the read. 

We laughed a lot, and Eliza remains one of my favorite celebrities: very friendly, thoughtful and articulate. As a major fan I was having a problem forming whole sentences (haha), but luckily, she offered indepth answers so my inability to speak coherently for long periods never became an issue(!).

Here goes:


Operator: I have Eliza on the line now please go ahead.
Me: Okay, thank you.
Eliza: Hello there.
Me: Hello, how are you going?
Eliza: Hi, I'm going good, how about yourself?
Me: Oh, I'm good, thank you. Are you enjoying Australia?
Eliza: I am, it's our second day here, but we got to walk around a little bit yesterday, inbetween fighting off jetlag. We went down to Darling Harbour and everything's in good walking distance from where they have us.
Me: Excellent. Have you been here before? You haven't?
Eliza: This is my second time, I was here fifteen years ago, I did a film here, kind of a crazy little film with Halle Berry and Jim Belushi. We spent a month in Sydney, we went out on the road and we worked in Alice Springs and Broken Hill, but we were here for about three months. I loved it then, and I was so excited to come back.
Me: Oh, excellent, have you been to Perth before?
Eliza: I've never been to Perth, no.
Me: The most isolated city in the world, that'll be an experience for you.
Eliza: Oh wow, yeah, I'm excited. This was sort of a perfect opportunity. Having had Dollhouse just finish a second season here, it was just a nice opportunity to come and thank the fans and, you know, it's been so many years that I feel like, ever since Buffy, I've had such Australian support from followers and fans. It was just really the perfect opportunity to come.


Me: Oh definitely. Someone at the office said to me, I can't believe you're interviewing the five-by-five girl, and I said it must be amazing to think five episodes of Buffy you were originally meant to do, and eleven years and people are still yelling Faith, Faith. Like, they just love you.
Eliza: I know, I know, I had no idea. I was literally supposed to come out and just do a few shows. I just graduated high school and I was enrolled in university in Boston. Actually, my mum's a Professor and I was enrolled at her school, and I was going to come out and make some tuition money. Four episodes turned into seven, turned into, you know, a lifetime of Buffy support, and fans, and Faith fanatics, but I love them, you know? 
I realized at a certain point how incredible that role was when I had young women come up to me on the street. They were writing me letters, and telling me stories about how they had been abused, and when my character came on Buffy they confronted their abusers. It just empowered all these young women, and I just I couldn't believe it, it was unlike anything- You know, I'd already been in the business for about seven years at that point, but I'd never had a role that affected people that intensely, and it really felt good, it really felt meaningful. So it was reason enough to withdraw from school, and put off my education, to empower young women in another way, for a short time.


Me: Oh definitely, and I just wondered, actually, when she turned to the dark side, I consider Faith turning to the dark side, like, Darth Vader's number one, and then Faith's turn to the dark side in pop culture would probably be number two.
Eliza: Wow, I'm after Darth Vader? 
Me: Yep.
Eliza: Huge. I have three older brothers, they would- that's amazing. Ah yeah, she did, she turned to the dark side, but you know, what I loved about her was that even when she was completely in the dark side and completely out of her mind, and, um, killing people and torturing people, there was something... You know, she was written in a way, and we played her in a way, that people still felt for her, people still pulled for her, and so it wasn't it wasn't just black and white, good and evil, it was this really complex grey area, you know? People loved her, in spite of everything she did, and it was really sort of fascinating to me.
Me: Did they actually let you know that your character was going that way, or was it sort of sprung on you in one episode?
Eliza: With Joss it depends. I mean, I feel like, over the years, both in Dollhouse and in Buffy, and also in Angel, you know the writers will come to you, I feel like they sort of reveal things as they should be revealed to the actor; like they don't tell you two months in advance, but about a week in advance they'll come to you and tell you that I'm going to be torturing Wesley with cooking spray and a lighter, and slashing his face up, and trying to kill Buffy’s boyfriend, and yeah, they'll tell you in just sort of a nonchalant way, and then you just trust them, because every time I've ever worked with that group, they found a way to make it make sense, and you know, definitely, it's provoking and it's- they push the envelope, and they provoke the audience that they love so much, but I think that's why the audience loves them back, because they never know what to expect, and they don't ever do something without there being, you know, something that's revealed from it, other than what's expected.


Me: Well I thought it was wonderful that you produced Dollhouse as well, I thought that was really impressive, and I just wondered, did you find your relationship with the writers and such, as a producer, is it different, and since you're an actress as well, was it a different experience for you?
Eliza: It was, and it was definitely a different turn for me, being the main role and being a producer and being, you know, sort of the centre of it, and I think when Joss- I first called Joss and sat him down and he was not planning on doing a television show, but over a four hour lunch (this infamous lunch), I talked to him, I told him I wanted to do something and I really wanted it to be with him, and he sort of started brainstorming and we came up with the show over lunch. It just really, to us, meant that we were going to be a true team going into this, and that it wasn't going to be just Joss delivering this whole world to me on a silver platter. I mean, he wanted me-

(Eliza cut off by music)

Eliza: Hello?
Me: Hello?
Eliza: Oh sorry, somehow the phone just cut out, it went blank and then it came back.
Me: Yeah, I got music, so I was like, oh, she's gone...
Eliza: Oh, okay. But anyways, so it was really something, you know, that he wanted to have be collaborative, and we wanted to pull together the right group of people; we only wanted, you know, we've both been in this business for a long time, and we've worked with some lovely people, and we've worked with some not-so-lovely people, and so we really said we would only pull together a group of people that would bring their A-game, and that wanted to be there, and that would make the best show that we could possibly make.
And that we would do it together, and that there was no, you know, there was no question that we were a team on this, so as far as working with the writers and developing stories, I mean, I never pretended that that was a role that was, that I felt that I could- you know, I'm not a writer, and I'm not a story breaker, but we would, you know, they would bring ideas to me and we would talk about different possibilities and different ways that the characters should go, but I think once we got into filming, it became pretty clear pretty fast that it was, that there was, ah, there were a lot of plates spinning in the air. There was a lot going on, and again I just; I really trusted Joss and the team, as far as breaking stories and as far as directions that all the characters, including Echo, went in.


Me: It seems like a lot of the material that you've been involved with, like even the movie that's coming out soon, Locked In, there's no, there's not a lot of lighthearted romps in there. Do you like a certain level of intensity in your scripts? 'Cause there seems a lot of morality and sense of self and destiny and questions of such; a lot of the material you work with has those themes.
Eliza: Yeah I think so, and I think for me, my art has, that saying art imitates life, it's always been very true. And I think especially with Joss, he got to know me from seventeen years old and as we sat down for lunch two years ago, at twenty seven years old, he looked at things that were happening in my life and, you know, I was at a point two years ago that I didn't know sort of who I wanted to be in this business, and people were sort of pulling me in all these directions. 
So I wouldn't say it was biographical, but I think that was absolutely something that we drew from, was this parallel of who am I, and who do people want me to be each day, and exactly, that sense of self. 
So those are things, that's a level of intensity that I do enjoy, but I have to say you know I would love to, and I think I'm going to be involved in, something a little more lighthearted and comedic in my next project (which I think I'll be announcing maybe in a couple of weeks). But it's definitely, it's one of those things where the grass is always greener; when you're doing a comedy you feel like a total goofball, and you would do anything to do something serious and intense and artistic, and then when you're doing that, you would kill to do a comedy. So, mix it up.


Me: I was going to say after all the intense kind of genre shows and unusual, I don't like the term scifi but that sort of unusual genre, you must sometimes think maybe I should do a procedural cop drama, just to balance it out?
Eliza: I don't know, I mean I feel like I had a bit of an experience with a procedural type show with the other tv show I did, Tru Calling. And while I enjoyed it, and it was something that I'm glad that I tried, I have a little bit too much ADD to do the sort of same procedure every episode in a row, but I would like to do more comedy and something more comedic. 
I feel like it's a part of me, and when I meet fans or when I meet new people or you know writers or directors in town, they always comment on sort of what a funny goofball I am in real life, and how that’s something that hasn’t really been seen. I mean, it was seen a little bit in Bring It On, and I did a few comedies over the years, and they were really fun for me, and they were just a great opportunity to show other colors, and I think I want to do some more of that, and explore some more of that.


Me: Are you focusing more on film, or on television, or on producing, or are you just open to opportunities that come?
Eliza: I think, I mean I'm open to opportunities that are coming and that I've created, and I'm definitely producing and working behind the camera as far as a few films that we have that we're working on. And you know television, you never know. I mean, it might be something also I would see myself producing again, and I think I guess there's no crystal ball in Hollywood and things are always changing, and the climate’s always changing. As far as television versus film, I don't think that I'll be headlining a television show for some time, but who knows, that could change in six months.
But I do feel that right now I really now am looking for the material, and so I'm excited about this project that I have coming up, and I know I can't talk too much about it so I don't mean to tease you with it, but it’s just, as far as we were talking about, in terms of a genre that I've worked in and that I sort of have all of these fans and followers from, I felt in a way, that with Dollhouse - it came out and it was so exciting when it first came to be, and everyone was on board, and all the fans internationally were as excited as we were, and then the show ended, and yeah, I guess it sort of ended in a dark way, and I have this feeling that fans sort wonder if I'm okay, or wonder if I'm broken? 
And you know, it's quite the opposite- we were grateful for the opportunity, I feel like we created this exciting and smart world for people with the two seasons of the show, and we were grateful that Fox let us finish out the story and finish out the second year, and now it's time to move on to something else.
(The project I have coming up, it's more satirical and it plays with the genre.)
This is still the entertainment business, and it's not- you know, I am okay and I am moving on, and this is still fun for me, and it's not something that I'm really licking my wounds over for the rest of time, you know? It's movies and tv, and you have an opportunity, and when that ends you pick up and do something else, so I am excited to let my fans know that I'm okay. We're all okay.
Me: Well I just thought I'd ask... You played the iconic vampire slayer, and I wonder, with the vampire resurgence now, if someone actually asked you to play a vampire, if you'd consider it?
Eliza: I've been asked that question! I mean it all depends on the material. Again, I think I've been offered a few of the shows that I've seen come out, or a few roles, and there is the part of me that says to follow one of the most iconic vampire shows of all time with one that is sort of subpar is not something that I would want to do, so I think (with as far as my agents) when a vampire thing comes along, unless it's, you know, Bram Stokers something, we’ve been a little selective about that.


Me: A lot of critics have always put out that you tied up the storylines beautifully in the finale of Dollhouse in the second season, it was quite brilliant. Do you think it makes a difference to fans when you can tie up your stories like that?
Eliza: Absolutely, because you ask them to become invested, and come along on this journey with all of the characters, and I think it's absolutely important to give them an ending, and to give them a finale. Again, that was something that we were really proud of and also something that we were grateful that we had the opportunity to do.
Me: I always thought it was interesting (the show) because my dad had a brain tumor and it's the same, ie the personality, people have no idea that the mind (the brain and the personality), is so much more fragile than people imagine, and that’s why I just thought the story was brilliant in Dollhouse, because it’s not- people think the concept is so science fiction, but it’s actually really quite possible. Like, you don’t realize the mind is like a computer program, and that’s why I thought the show was fantastic, because it was actually quite close to real life in a way.
Eliza: Yeah, I mean I think that’s, again, something that Joss is just so amazing at doing. And you know, of course, even Buffy, it was vampires and monsters, but it was the themes of the show that people connected to, and that people felt like they could understand, and everyone could somehow relate to the characters and to the situation. Obviously Buffy was about high school, and it was something that everyone could understand. 
Dollhouse had themes and characters as well, and some outsiders looking in would talk about how confusing a world it was and how, you know, that it was quite simply human trafficking and prostitution and all of these things that we heard, but I think we all knew it was something deeper, and people who really got into the show felt like they could relate in some way with it.
Me: Would you happily work with Joss again?
Eliza: What's that?
Me: Would you happily work with Joss again?
Eliza: Of course. He's my buddy, he's my bro.
Me: A fantastic partnership.
Eliza: I just have so much respect for him. I've been in this business now for almost twenty years, I can't even believe it, I'm not even thirty and I never imagined myself saying, I've done that for twenty years, but here I am. And I've worked with a lot of people, and I just have genuine respect and admiration for him and his storytelling and his, you know, his themes about young women. 
I mean, I sort of tripped and fell into this business when I was nine, and my mother is s professor, a feminist, and she has raised us travelling the world, and being involved in women's rights and issues, and I don’t know if I would of stayed in this business had I not had the opportunity to be working with Joss. Working with Joss on Buffy, like I said, was the first time I felt like the work I was doing had social and emotional relevance; that I felt like I was really contributing something to the world, and it gave me faith that I could be an actress and not just be superficial, and play a role on a greater level and a greater scale, and I've always been grateful to him for that.

No comments:

Post a Comment