Quotes from Eliza Dushku

Each year, I say I'm going to go to school next year. It's inevitable that I'll end up getting my education.

There is definitely something sexy about a girl with an attitude and a pair of leather pants.

When you get to your mid-20s, you start to feel responsibilities for the things that you do and the people around you. It's a cool age.

We didn't have a TV in the living room and all my friends thought we were kind of weird. When they'd come over, my mom wanted to talk to them about current events.

My mom is like this hard-core, liberal feminist. She's a professor in Boston, and she's been teaching women's studies for 30 years and international politics.

My parents divorced when I was born, and my mother is a political science professor, like a feminist Mormon, which is sort of an oxymoron.

If I wasn't doing this, I'd be in school studying political science or socioeconomic something. I love visiting different cultures and finding out how they make up a society.

After I graduated high school and came out to do 'Buffy,' I was enrolled at my mom's university, and I was going to go get a real job. I never thought of acting and never really wanted to be an actor.

For the longest time, I thought I was a boy. I really did. I wore boys' clothes, played tag football.

There are a lot of actresses out there who are the girl next door. I relate more to characters who have an edge.

I cannot watch my own dailies, ever. I'm my worst critic. It distracts me. I can watch it when it's done, but I'm not the girl that wants to run back and look at the performance.

Growing up I was as big a tomboy as you can get.

I receive really powerful personal letters. I think that always takes the cake. It blows me away... some of the comments. Someone will come and I sense their whole tone and energy when they're handing me this letter.

I love leather and it's great to be a bad girl at times. But there is a time and place for everything. When I'm with Grandma it's flowers, and when I'm out on the town scoping guys, you know.

The letters from jail are always disconcerting.

I purely attribute my 'hamming it up' quality to growing up with three older brothers and just being like a tomboy my whole life. Literally, my mother had to be like, 'Honey, there's a certain point where you have to start wearing a shirt.' You know, I would run around with the boys and play tag football and climb trees.

When I worked with Jamie Lee Curtis in 'True Lies', she told me, You need a plan B, because when you have six months to a year off, you can go nuts. You need to have another focus.

I love the physical roles. I have the utmost respect for stunt people and stunt doubles, but I like to do as much as I possibly can with what's become some pretty significant training.

I remember having a Mike Tyson T-shirt back in the day that I used to sleep in. And there some things that Tyson did along the way that I wasn't too psyched to associate myself with. But back in the day, just as a fighter, what a dream that was to watch and root for him.

I think people hear and feel the genuine nature of my passion for the causes. Specifically, with the non-profit in Uganda, my mother is the president, and she was an African politics professor for almost 50 years, so I think people know that I align myself with people who know what they're talking about.

I really admire the way the fans have joined me in social justice endeavours and the charitable work that I've been involved in. We've raised over $100,000 on Twitter for our non-profit in Uganda.

I have nieces and nephews that I love hanging out with, and they think I'm the biggest goof on the planet.

My mom grew up in Idaho, went to Brigham Young University: they're very Molly Mormon. And my father is, like, first generation Albanian, and his parents lived in Southey and grew up in downtown Boston. My parents are complete opposites.

My mom is like this hard-core, liberal feminist. She's a professor in Boston, and she's been teaching women's studies for 30 years and international politics.