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May 10, 2002
'New Guy' Opens, Articles, Articles, Articles...
Quickish update: 'The New Guy' opens on 2,600+ screens today. Check out the official site and click on 'Tickets and Showtimes' to find out where it's playing in your area. Also, a reminder that Eliza will be on 'The Late Late Show' with Craig Kilborn, and on 'Pure Oxygen' on the Oxygen Network.
There's a Q&A with Eliza up at the TeenHollywood.com site: [ q & a ]
The 107.3 WAAF FM website has posted an interview that Eliza conducted with them last week. [ website ]
ETA: really good, really long interview with Eliza up at Film Force. [ interview ]
And a few press interviews that Eliza also did last week... from St. Paul Pioneer Press: St. Paul Pioneer Press
by Chris Hewitt
'NEW GUY' TEAMS UP A NOVICE AND A PRO
"I was eating crayons when I was 11, and you were hopping off a jet with Arnold Schwarzenegger."
That's DJ Qualls talking, and the "you" he's addressing is Eliza Dushku, who's sitting across from him in a swank suite at the Grand Hotel in Minneapolis. The two star in this Friday's high school farce, "The New Guy," but Dushku is better known as the cranky cheerleader from "Bring It On." Before that, she was better known as the evil Faith on "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer." And before that, she was known as Schwarzenegger's 11-year-old daughter in Jim Cameron's "True Lies."
The two have followed different paths to movie semi-stardom. Dushku, 21, has worked consistently since debuting in 1992's "That Night." Qualls was an unknown, auditioning for a walk-on in the 2000 Tom Green grosscom "Road Trip" who was elevated to a leading role and has made seven movies in the intervening two years. You might expect newcomer Qualls to be inexperienced in the publicity game but, surprisingly, he's the one who comes off as guarded while Dushku opens up.
"You've got a better chance of seeing God than seeing Eliza Dushku nude," she says, applying pink lip gloss. "That's my stuff, nobody else's. I don't want my little brother to turn on his computer and have naked me as his screensaver. And, speaking of which, what's up with people sending naked pictures of me to my uncle? That's so gross. In the first place, the pictures are fake. In the second place, sending an uncle pictures of his niece? Please."
Qualls, who won't reveal his age (it's 24), says it's the other end of the nudity spectrum that concerns him: "I'm finished with playing virgins. I've played nine characters now and seven of them have been virgins. Other than that, it's a fun job, even if it isn't as glamorous as people think. On my last movie, I had to spend two days reading my lines off-camera for the other actors, crouched next to some cameraman's crotch, which was pretty uncomfortable."
"And how much were they paying you, my friend?" retorts Dushku, perching her red, snakeskin stilettos on an ottoman the size of a compact car. "I can't see complaining about this job. My father grew up so poor - I've heard all the stories - and I haven't seen anyone who has been given as many chances as I have. And I have a raging case of ADD, so if I didn't have this job, I don't know what I'd be doing."
Qualls says he's eager for his first big premiere (and bummed they're not doing one for "The New Guy"). Dushku is more blasé about the business. She knows actresses' careers tend to be only slightly longer than ballerinas'. ("I have to be realistic. For women, this business doesn't last.") She knows how to choose roles in her comfort area. ("I'm not going to pretend I'm Meryl Streep. I don't nail it on every take. There are roles I can't do.") And she knows not every movie turns out as expected. ("We all thought 'Bring It On' would suck, and I was sure 'Soul Survivors' would be the movie that would redeem me. But 'Bring It On' was a hit and 'Soul Survivors' came out (expletive) and unwatchable. You can't predict.")
Ironically, "Bring It On," the movie least likely to succeed, was also the movie that earned Dushku the job in "The New Guy." Qualls showed up at the opening of "Bring It On" and, after someone spilled wine on Dushku's $1,500 dress, the two began to talk about the project that, ultimately, brought them to Minneapolis last week to spill the beans about "The New Guy." [ article ]
From college paper, The Daily Stanford: The Daily Stanford: Intermission
by Anthony Ha, 5/10/02
DUSHKU DISTRACTS YET ANOTHER INTERVIEWER
Although 21-year-old Eliza Dushku acted in movies like "True Lies" and "This Boy’s Life" while in her early teens, I didn’t notice her until her appearance as Faith during the third season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which I only half-jokingly refer to as the greatest television show of all time. During her stint as Faith, she was often the most dynamic thing on the screen - an ass-kicking vampire slayer impulsive enough to make Buffy look positively school-marmish. And the form-fitting leather outfits didn’t hurt, either.
Since leaving "Buffy," Dushku’s film work has included the Kevin Smith comedy "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" and the cheerleader flick "Bring It On." On her newest movie, the Ed Decter-directed comedy "The New Guy," she again plays a high school cheerleader - Danielle, one of the girls at the top of the societal pecking order at East Highland High School. After a disastrous accident at his old school involving, well, his penis, titular new guy Dizzy Harrison (DJ Qualls) reinvents himself as Dizzy Harris and arrives at East Highland hoping to establish a new, cooler identity. The film tells the story of Dizzy’s struggle for popularity at East Highland, and of his romance with Danielle.
I, along with four other journalists, interviewed Dushku at the Sony Metreon in San Francisco last Friday. She was energetic and friendly, beginning the interview by pointing out the window and exclaiming, "Look at some of these buildings - they’re gorgeous!" As we talked about her life and work, she continued to fidget with her hair and clothes. And when she started to play with her V-cut shirt, I became... slightly distracted.
"The New Guy" was originally scheduled to be released last year but, due to the confusion surrounding the impending actors’ strike (which never actually occurred), was continually delayed. Although Dushku admitted that the wait was frustrating, she pointed out that it was much worse for some of her fellow castmembers, for whom "The New Guy" was their first film and supposed big break.
"They’re waiting to get their next role for this goddamned movie to come out," Dushku explained. "You know, [Ross Patterson] is calling me and going, ‘This is killing me!’ I’m like, ‘I know, I know, it’ll come out, baby, it’ll come out. It’ll be great, and, y’know, they’ll be knocking down your door,’ but that sucks when you’re kind of leaning on it. And I think he’s so good in the movie. So, it’s frustrating, but what are you going to do?"
Among the moments that made the sporadically funny "New Guy" bearable for me (an adolescent male, please keep in mind) were a scene in which Danielle modeled a variety of skimpy swimsuits, and another in which she rode a mechanical bull. Dushku said that her comfortability with scenes that paraded her sexuality stemmed largely from her upbringing with three older brothers.
"Literally, my mother had to be like, ‘Honey, there’s a certain point where you have to start wearing a shirt,’ you know?" she said. "I would, like, run around with the boys and play tag football and climb trees. I think that I really thought I was a boy until I was 10 years old, because my parents divorced when I was born, so my three brothers were almost like my fathers growing up. So as I’ve become more feminine, I’ve always been comfortable with my body."
Before the interview, I had noticed long lines of people waiting to see Dushku later that afternoon, several of them carrying Faith action figures for her to sign. I asked her how she felt about the devoted, obsessive fan culture that had sprung up around "Buffy."
"It can be creepy, but it’s also so flattering," she said. "I’m just so grateful. I mean, there’s obviously a line, but at the same time it’s like, these people have just given so much in terms of, they go to see my movies, and they come and travel from different cities to be at these signings and they’re so supportive. I don’t know how I can feel anything other than gratitude and appreciation. As long as they don’t, you know, jump on me or start calling me by my character’s name. Stuff like that freaks me out, like the ones who don’t have the line between reality and the show."
"You know, I joke about it, but it’s really, for the most part, harmless," she added. "And I’m glad that I can provide this entertainment for them, and provide this character. I think Faith really came in represented this working-class chick, whereas Buffy was kind of blonde-haired, blue-eyed, like have the mom, have the perfect home life. I got a lot of letters from young girls who just said the second she came on camera, they felt like they could relate to her, and they found a power and a strength in themselves through watching my character. That’s pretty intense. And I feel like if I emotionally helped five girls, that’s huge, because I don’t think there’s enough attention paid even now to the psychology of young girls, and the treatment of young girls in high school and the treatment of young teenage girls in society."
As for the future, Dushku said that she still hasn’t decided whether she wants acting to be her primary career.
"I’ve really come to terms with the fact that I’m probably not going to take the conventional college, four-year route," she said. "I might have to do it class-by-class, have to do courses on the Internet. It helps having a mom who’s a professor, because she’s really, really intuitive, and kind of really helps me keep it mixed up. She’ll say, like, ‘Okay, we’re going to South Africa, for two-and-a-half weeks for a study seminar on women in post-Apartheid society in South Africa.’ So we go on this trip, and that, to me, was like a college course in itself."
And is she worried that her recent spate of roles in so-called "teen movies" might limit her opportunities as an actress?
"I’m not that far off from being a teenager, so I’m really not completely against doing teen movies, because who else is going to do them?" she answered. "I feel like I’m old enough that I can look back and remember them and be honest about them, and I can feel comfortable enough to reenact the reality, as opposed to, like, you know, how I wished it was. I’m old enough to be over it, I’m over enough to be like, ‘Okay, what happened, happened,’ and you know, I can understand it and almost even appreciate almost even the terrible times."
"And also, I feel like I’ve gone through all the phases of being a teenager. So I feel like I’ve gone through the really vulnerable early teens, the middle teens, where I was just so hard and rebellious and obnoxious, and I really actually started doing ‘Buffy’ right on that stage, so it came into ‘Buffy’ a lot. Because I got teased so much that I kinda had to have this survival technique, I built up this really thick skin and I built up this really kind of defensive, you know, façade. And now, four years later, now that the shell-shock of high school is over, now I’m actually, you know, much more comfortable and much more chill. I feel like I’ve had the stages of my adolescence documented on film my whole life." [ article ]
And from Jacksonville.com: The Florida Times-Union
by Matt Soergel
'BUFFY' GRAD PLAYS NICE FOR A CHANGE
In The New Guy, opening today, actress Eliza Dushku takes on a different sort of role -- for her.
"I play Danielle, the head cheerleader with a heart of gold," she says.
Dushku enjoys saying that -- she laughs as she says it -- because she's made a pretty good career for herself by playing anything but the good girl. The typical Dushku role, so far: Cynical. Troubled. Tough.
She was tough bad-girl Faith on Buffy the Vampire Killer. A tough cheerleader in Bring It On. A tough evil girl in Soul Survivors. A tough jewel thief in black leather in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
That's a lot of toughness. But Dushku, who's 21, was ready for it.
After all, she says, she survived high school.
Kids at her school -- Watertown High, a school close to Boston -- knew that she'd already been in True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger, This Boy's Life with Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio and Race the Sun with Halle Berry.
They made sure to let her know they were not impressed.
"I just got out of high school when I started doing Buffy. High school for me was a nightmare because I was tortured. I was 'actress girl.' Kids were so mean, so I kind of developed this hard, defensive skin. I kind of brought that to the character, this tough . . . 'don't mess with me' attitude. Now it's been four years since high school, and in real life I'm actually much sweeter and more comfortable with myself now."
The news that she's playing a nice girl might alarm the fans she's made playing the tough, dark-haired, sexy anti-hero (an Internet search for her name turns up a couple of dozen fan sites).
But fans shouldn't worry. Dushku -- who's 13th on Maxim magazine's "Hot 100 of 2002" -- still plays a sexy role in this film, which includes an extended scene in which she models bikinis.
The New Guy is a goofy teen comedy, but Dushku's presence is likely to attract a number of Buffy fans.
"I had no idea walking into Buffy that the show was what it was, what kind of following it had," she said. "Those fans are so loyal, so hardcore, it's almost like Star Trek fans. Those people have made every single Web site I have on the Internet."
Her Buffy role as Faith, a wild-child vampire killer, wasn't meant to be a regular gig. But it lasted two seasons (until Faith was given a life sentence in prison).
"They originally didn't really see her as being a character people would like or relate to. They kind of brought her in to be just a bad character for a few shows. But I think we brought a little sympathy to her, some innocence, so that you couldn't hate her."
Dushku says she never really had any careful plan to be an actor. As a child, she was spotted at one of her older brother's auditions (she fell and got a bloody nose and drew everyone's attention).
And now she's a star doing interviews and photo shoots and making movies. But it still feels like "dress up," she says.
"I feel like I've just gotten picked up, carried along, living this Hollywood life. It's so completely not me. One day I'm going to get found out. They'll say, 'Hey, wait a minute, what are you doing here?'" [ article ]
Hey, I was a BiO fan. :) I've got a few more things to update, but they'll be coming over the weekend. Also, I'm planning on a site redesign sometime - any suggestions or criticisms about the current format would be much appreciated.
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