What Happened To Eliza Dushku: From Buffy's Faith To Psychedelic Healer

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was never the same after Eliza Dushku made her TV debut during the show's third season. Playing Faith Lehane, Dushku presented a new, more aggressive type of Slayer, one who served as a murderous foil to Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy Summers. Dushku, who was only 17 when she landed the "Buffy" role, had been planning on leaving high school behind for higher education, but the vampire drama was too good to pass up. Faith became a relatable hit with audiences, and what was originally supposed to be a three-episode stint turned into 26 episodes total between "Buffy" and its spin-off series "Angel," defining Dushku's career.

But whatever happened to Eliza Dushku after "Buffy"? For a while, there were talks about a Faith-centered spin-off that would have followed the Slayer around the globe (probably on a motorcycle), but Dushku decided to pursue other career possibilities instead. It's been over 20 years since Dushku played Faith on screen but that doesn't mean the actress hasn't kept herself busy. If you ever wondered whatever happened to this rising star, then keep reading.

While Eliza Dushku was still playing Faith on "Buffy," she landed the role of newcomer Missy Pantone in "Ant-Man" filmmaker Peyton Reed's feature directorial debut, "Bring It On." The "Bring It On" movies have turned into a longstanding direct-to-video franchise, with the original becoming something of a cult classic that brought Dushku together with Kirsten Dunst (fresh off "Spider-Man") and a post-"10 Things I Hate About You" Gabrielle Union. "I was a tomboy growing up and kind of an anti-cheerleader in real life," Dushku recalled to Entertainment Weekly in 2015. "But I begrudgingly showed up for the audition, probably a little hungover." 

Evidently, Reed found Dushku's distaste for cheerleading culture appealing, and jumped at the chance to cast her in the film. "The hardest thing was getting the cheer faces," the actress explained. "I was kind of a scowly kid. I'm a perfectionist, so I got the dance moves down, but they had to really teach me to just keep that grin." Despite the film's popularity, "Bring It On" had a strange legacy that included five direct-to-video follow-ups, a made-for-TV movie, and even a stage musical. Dushku, however, returned for none of them.

If you wondered what project drew Eliza Dushku away from a Faith spin-off, then wonder no more. Soon after the end of "Buffy," Dushku found herself headlining her own series on Fox called "Tru Calling." If you've never heard of it, we don't blame you — it's one of those forgotten TV series that should probably get a reboot. Fox canceled the show during its second season, leaving fans with unresolved cliffhangers that we're still wrapping our heads around. But despite its premature cancellation, Dushku gave a powerful performance as young medical student Tru Davies. 

Although the show had no connection to "Buffy," the actress didn't get too far from the paranormal, as Tru soon discovers that she has the ability to relive the present day in order to help the dead to, well, not die. It's a fascinating concept for a show, and because of its uniqueness, some have continued to wonder why Fox gave it the axe instead of marketing it better. Considering that this was around the same time that the network dumped "Firefly," it's hardly surprising. In addition to Dushku, Zach Galifianakis and Matt Bomer played lead roles on "Tru Calling," long before they were bigger names in the film and television business.

Following the demise of "Tru Calling," Dushku got back on the pilot horse. In 2007, the actress was set to headline a comedy pilot titled "Nurses," replacing Katheryn Winnick in the lead role of Eve. Sadly, Fox never gave this series a chance, though just over eight minutes of the project can still be found online. Of course, this wasn't the only swing-and-a-miss in Dushku's career. Only a few years later, she was attached to a new TNT pilot titled "Bird Dogs," but left the project over some undisclosed creative differences. 

Promptly after that, Dushku joined the cast of a Damon Wayans-led CBS sitcom described as an ESPN-inspired sports radio comedy. This project seemed to have loads of potential, with Dushku reporting on her Facebook page that she was doing a "happy dance" at the news. But the pilot — later named "Herd Mentality" — never materialized. The last pilot that Dushku filmed was a 2013 reboot of the hit 1960s series "The Saint." With Dushku starring opposite Adam Rayner, this project was nearly lost forever until it was eventually re-cut and released as an hour-and-a-half action flick in 2017. To date, it's the last project Eliza Dushku is credited for as an actress.

In the early 2000s, bands like Nickelback and Simple Plan were all the rage, and Eliza Dushku — hot off "Buffy," "Bring It On," and "Soul Survivors" — was always in the public eye. In conjunction with their teen comedy "The New Guy," Dushku and costar DJ Qualls reunited as the movie's characters, Danielle and Dizzy, in the video for Simple Plan's 2002 hit, "I'm Just A Kid." If you grew up in this era and remember watching this music video on repeat, the video itself plays almost like a mini-version of the movie, with Dushku and Qualls walking away from the band happy in the end.

But Simple Plan wasn't the only era-specific band to convince Dushku to appear in their music video. In 2007, Dushku showed up in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in Nickelback's "Rockstar." To be fair, the band convinced everyone from random by-passers on the street to Kiss's very own Gene Simmons to show up and lip-sync a line or two from their most popular track, but Dushku's quick cameo is what we care most about.

When "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was coming to an end, Eliza Dushku was brought in to record dialogue as Faith for the 2003 tie-in video game, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds." Evidently, the project was a good enough experience that Dushku had no problem returning to the recording booth two years later to play Yumi in the English version of the Sega video game "Yakuza." In 2008, Dushku landed the role of Shaundi in "Saints Row 2" (though she would be replaced in the follow-up, "Saints Row: The Third"), and played the lead heroine Rubi Malone in the 2009 third-person shooter "Wet." Though a sequel was in the works, it was another Dushku project that simply fizzled out.

However, that didn't dampen the actress' love of the medium. "I love voicing video games so my nephews can 'play' me," the actress told Us magazine in 2011, the same year she landed her last video game role to date as Megan McQueen in "Fright Night Champion." Outside of playing roles in popular video games, Dushku is an outspoken fan of them herself. It's no wonder she attended Spike TV's Video Game Awards back in the day. In fact, Dushku went so far as to partner with IGN for her infamous "My Console" rap back in 2012, comedically defending the rights of female gamers everywhere.

In the early 2000s, after her time on "Buffy" and "Tru Calling," Dushku found herself starring in a handful of horror and thriller pictures. While teen comedies were her usual feature film niche, the Rob Schmidt-directed "Wrong Turn" — in which she fought to survive an onslaught of cannibals — proved that Dushku had the chops to headline her own horror flick as well. As with "Bring It On," "Wrong Turn" sparked a larger franchise that Dushku opted not to return for. But 2008 was really the year of Eliza Dushku-led thrillers, with the release of three different features in the genre. 

The first of these was the indie horror pic "Open Graves," which cast Dushku alongside "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" star Mike Vogel. The film premiered on Syfy that fall before landing a DVD release soon after. Next was the based-on-a-true-story crime-thriller "The Thacker Case" (later re-titled "The Coverup"), which centered on a mysterious death that Dushku gets stuck in the middle of. But perhaps the best known of these is "The Alphabet Killer." Loosely based on a string of murders that occurred in Rochester, New York in the 1970s, "The Alphabet Killer" reunited Dushku with director Rob Schmidt, who gave the actress a meatier role as investigator Megan Paige (and an associate producer credit to boot). 

After years away from "Buffy," Eliza Dushku found herself ready to return to television in 2007. After striking a deal with Fox, she approached "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon to help develop a new series for the network — with her as the star. "We went to a four-hour lunch where I just sort of used my womanly wiles," Dushku joked to Suicide Girls in 2009. "I told him how bad I wanted and needed him back and he accepted and here we are." The result was "Dollhouse," a high-concept sci-fi drama that centered around humans known as "Dolls," who are hired out by clients for a variety of different missions, encounters, or otherwise classified projects. Dushku, who developed the series with Whedon, played the lead "Doll," Echo.

Sadly, like many of Dushku's other solo ventures, "Dollhouse" was canceled by Fox during its second season, citing low ratings as the excuse. But the sci-fi show garnered its own cult following during its 26 episodes, and eventually comic book continuations of the program were released to round out Echo's story. Still, it's tragic that the one series that Dushku had a hand in creating herself, all while playing the lead role, was canceled so soon. Though "Dollhouse" marked a turn in Dushku's career, which encouraged her to venture into the behind-the-scenes world of filmmaking, it was also the last time she would be cast as the main lead in any series going forward.

It seems like no actor can get through Hollywood these days without venturing into the world of comic book superheroes, and Eliza Dushku is no exception. In 2013, she landed the role of Jennifer Walters, aka the She-Hulk, on the Disney XD/Marvel Animation animated series, "Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H." Although this wasn't the first time that She-Hulk smashed her way to TV, it partnered her up with her cousin and a new cast of gamma-powered characters. For 51 episodes, Dushku played She-Hulk, and to say that it was perfect casting would be an understatement. She returned to the role in the "Ultimate Spider-Man" episode "Contest of the Champions: Part 4," which served as a crossover with her "Hulk" series.

But the She-Hulk wasn't the first comic book character Dushku portrayed in animation. Before that, she was on the DC side of the comic book aisle, playing Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman, in the 2011 animated film, "Batman: Year One." Dushku was then given her own animated short film, "DC Showcase: Catwoman," to continue her story. At the very least, these roles make us wish that Dushku played more superheroes.

In an unexpected turn of events, Eliza Dushku teamed up with her brother Nate Dushku for a 2015 travel documentary that took them back to their family's roots. Dushku's Albanian grandparents on her father's side migrated to the United States in the 1930s, leaving gaps in her family history that she hoped to uncover. Though she didn't know much about Albania early on in life, she's since forged a strong link to her ancestry, with this documentary helping that process. 

With "Dear Albania," which Dushku starred in and produced, the actress was able to recover a part of her past that she'd never felt a connection to before. "We realized that nobody really knows about our father's mother country," Dushku told the Boston Herald in 2016 (via YouTube). "There's just so much history that deserves to be seen." Today, the full documentary can be found on YouTube.

In addition to making her own documentary film, Dushku launched her own production company, Boston Diva Productions, back when she starred on "Dollhouse" in 2009. This led to her producer credit on the short-lived Fox series and her Albania documentary. But the crown jewel of Boston Diva is "Mapplethorpe." A biopic based on the life of Boston photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, the 2018 film — which starred Matt Smith, who left "Doctor Who" five years earlier, in the title role — was a labor of love that took Eliza Dushku and her brother Nate over a decade to bring to the screen. 

"It's not the easiest thing to get an art film financed," the actress told Deadline in 2018. "We're not a Marvel comic." Though audiences generally enjoyed Dushku's "Mapplethorpe," the biopic was panned by critics, who didn't consider the project anything to write home about. Outside of "Mapplethorpe," Boston Diva Productions also secured the rights to the "Black Company" series of dark fantasy novels by author Glen Cook in 2017. Sadly, there has been no active developments since, though Dushku was originally slated to star in an adaptation of the project.

Though the remake of "The Saint" is Eliza Dushku's last credited role due to its release date, the actress effectively left show business behind after exiting CBS's "Bull" in 2017. After playing newcomer J.P. Nunnelly in the final few episodes of the first season (and slated to return as a series regular for Season 2), Dushku was dismissed after speaking out against series star Michael Weatherly, who she accused of sexually harassing her.  "In my first week on my new job I found myself the brunt of crude, sexualized and lewd verbal assaults," Dushku explained in her 2017 testimony (via CNN). "I suffered near constant sexual harassment from my co-star." 

Eventually, CBS offered Dushku a $9.5 million settlement. Unsatisfied by an apparent lack of change, Dushku later penned an op-ed for the Boston Globe where she recounted her experience on the set of "Bull," and what happened when she was fired in the middle of a shoot. Since then, she has left the industry behind, finding new ways to find fulfillment in her life and career. Meanwhile, "Bull" continued on CBS for six seasons before ending in 2022.

Eliza Dushku might have skipped out on college in favor of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (and who could blame her?), but eventually, the star went back to school. In 2016, she began studying sociology at Suffolk University, where her mother taught, before moving over to Lesley University to pursue a degree in holistic psychology. After graduating in 2020, Dushku pursued a master's degree in counseling and clinical mental health, with her unique focus being in "psychedelic-assisted therapy" (via Boston Globe).

But in addition to pursuing another career, Dushku also decided it was time to settle down and start a family of her own. After moving out of Los Angeles years earlier, Dushku married real estate mogul (and former pro tennis player) Peter Palandjian in her hometown of Boston in 2018. The following year, the pair welcomed their first son. Now, with two children at home, Dushku and Palandjian have used their resources to give back to their local East Coast community.

Recently, Eliza Dushku has revealed that she's putting all that new education to good use. Now a certified therapist, Dushku is hoping to use psychedelic drugs to help treat those suffering from mental health struggles, including anxiety, depression, and PTSD. She herself has used psychedelics to help heal from past traumas — which began when she was sexually molested on the set of "True Lies" when she was a child — and wants to help others do the same. 

"I had the means to shift directions and choose a course in my life that focused on healing myself so that I could help heal others," Dushku told Boston magazine in September 2024. "I would be remiss if I didn't now share the transformation and the peace and the passion that I have." In other words, decades after "Tru Calling" was taken off the air, Dushku believes that she has finally found her real, "true" calling in life.