When she was 12, Eliza Dushku fell into acting. "My brother had a commercial in Boston," she says. "I went on the audition with him and tripped and broke my nose. They were like, 'Hey, who's that kid?'" Dushku hasn't stumbled since. In fact, she is now coordinated enough to do her own fight scenes on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

"It looks cooler when it's really you," she explains, "so your friends don't go, 'Oh, that was your stunt double!'"

But that's not to say Dushku still isn't a bit of a softie. For the teen thriller Soul Survivors, costarring Casey Affleck and Wes Bentley, Dushku had to shoot late-night scenes covered in blood with a prosthetic wound on her face.

"Emotionally, it kind of freaked me out," she says. "I used to call my mom and say, 'Mom, I'm sick of dying every night.'" But Dushku knows that's just one of the hazards of being a recognizable actress - even if fame has turned her into something of a Danger-Prone Daphne: "Some guy [at a hotel bar] asked me if I was on TV, and I said yes, and he threw his drink at me," Dushku recalls. "I was recognized, but my face was wet. It was nuts."

Reprinted from Allure - By Stephanie Saulmon - February 2001