Eliza Dushku

Dushku was working before she was a teenager, playing Pearl in This Boy's Life (1993) and then Dana, the daughter, in True Lies (1994), a stunt-heavy part for a child actor and still one of the better uses of a kid in a 1990s blockbuster.

Faith is the role. Introduced on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a second Slayer with none of the lead's guilt, she gave the series its most volatile figure, and she carried the character across to Angel as well. What Dushku did with it was refuse to make the danger charming: Faith is fun to watch and genuinely unpleasant to be around, and the performance holds both of those at once, which is why the character outlasted most of the show's mythology.

The leads that followed were built for that quality and none of them lasted. Tru Calling gave her a network genre vehicle; Dollhouse, which she also produced, asked her to play a different personality nearly every week, a premise designed as a showcase that ended up exposing how much better she is when a character has continuity. Around them came Bring It On (2000) as Missy, the gymnast who joins the squad, Wrong Turn (2003), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), City by the Sea (2002) and Selina in the animated Batman: Year One. Her last credits here are from the middle of the 2010s, including the attorney J.P. Nunnelly on Bull, and she has since stepped away from acting.