Try balancing between books, scenes
By Daily Bruin Staff
Sept. 24, 2000 9:00 p.m.
 Columbia Pictures Actress Elisabeth Shue
decided to return to college to obtain her degree after a 10 year
break.
By Emilia Hwang
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Returning to the site of the “best years of your
life” is a different experience for every graduate.
For Gabrielle Union, walking into a locker room in Pauley
Pavilion was just another day in the life of an actor. Though she
said it was great to be back in Westwood talking about her
character “Isis” in the summer hit “Bring It
On,” the UCLA alumnus could not look at every aspect of Bruin
life with the same sentimentality.
“I don’t miss walking up and down and back and forth
to the dorms,” she said.
Though Union has gone from trekking up Bruin Walk to starring
with Morris Chestnut in the upcoming film “The
Brothers,” she was not always on the path to acting.
“I thought I was going to go to law school,” said
Union, who majored in sociology.
While she didn’t pursue law, she can add her university
degree to credentials that include movies like “10 Things I
Hate About You” and “She’s All That.”
Moreover, she has many fond memories of college and friends despite
her demanding workload.
 AMY HABER/Daily Bruin “I miss the parties,”
she said. “There’s so much going on and there’s
such a diversity (at UCLA).”
For Eilza Dushku, the path to fame as Faith in the television
series “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer” required her to
choose between college and her acting career.
Dushku’s mother, a university professor, encouraged her to
attend public school and forget about making movies when her grades
suffered from on-set tutoring.
“It was just her wanting the best for me,” Dushku
said at a recent press junket.
At her mother’s request, Dushku went back to school,
attended her prom and graduated with her high school class. Just
shortly after she attended her college orientation and settled into
her dorm, she was offered the role on “Buffy.”
She said it was difficult to choose between college and her
acting career because she was excited to go to school and the
series originally only wanted her for five shows. Fortunately, her
decision to postpone her academic career was fruitful as Faith
turned into a recurring character on the series.
Dushku, who began her career as ten-year-old Alice Bloom in
“That Night,” said she plans to return to college when
the time is right.
“I’m going to be undecided ““ that’s what
all my friends did when they went,” she said with a playful
laugh. “I’m just going to figure it out as I go
along.”
Actors who are able to attend school find themselves confronted
with the same problems as other college students. Just ask Jesse
Bradford, who has been exploring ways to keep the textbook store
from burning a hole in his pocket.
“What I’ve been doing to save dough is taking
(books) out of the library,” he said in a recent
interview.
Bradford, who made his first television appearance as an infant
in a Q-tip commercial, is currently studying film at Columbia
University.
He admits that having a résumé that includes roles in
movies like “Hackers” and “Romeo + Juliet”
probably helped him get into the Ivy League school.
“They’re looking for good SATs and good grades along
with that extra special thing,” he said.
That extra special thing for Bradford includes starring in
“Presumed Innocent” with Harrison Ford at age 8.
“They want to see initiative,” he said. “Being
an actor, especially one who’s been working consistently for
most of his life, that’s just a plus.”
While it has its perks, acting has also taken a toll on
Bradford, who works hard to juggle his film career while in
college.
At the beginning of his freshman year, he was offered a great
role and the opportunity to work with director James Ivory. For
“A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries,” Bradford had
to take time off from school to film in North Carolina.
Bradford petitioned to receive special permission to continue
the term on independent study.
“I’d been (at Columbia) for two months,” he
said. “I didn’t want to drop out before I even
started.”
In addition to completing the regular course work and passing
the final, Bradford had to hand in supplementary work for missing
lectures. So in between filming, the actor used his breaks to write
papers.
“All my time was either dedicated to making the movie or
school,” he said.
Balancing academics and acting was a learning experience for
Bradford that taught him to maintain his GPA by making movies
during summer vacation.
“I ended up having a double workload my first semester of
freshman year and it blew me away,” he said. “It was my
worst GPA since my sophomore year in high school and it was
horrible.”
With upcoming films like “Cherry Falls” and
“Speedway Junky” underway, when does actor-student
Bradford find the time for socializing and student life?
“There’s too much to do in Manhattan not to have a
social life,” he said. “If you’re going to sit in
your room and study all day, what are you getting out of college
beside all this book learning?”
Nevertheless, actor Elisabeth Shue craved that “book
learning” after a 10 year break from school.
“I felt a need to re-engage my sense of curiosity,”
Shue said at a press day for this summer’s “Hollow
Man.”
Her decision to return to school was prompted, in part, by her
husband, who had been working on documentaries about first-time
teachers.
“Every day he would come home with footage that made me
cry, seeing these people do such a heroic job with no attention and
no recognition,” Shue said. “To see him inspired by his
work on an intellectual level “¦ made me feel like I needed to
re-engage that side of myself.”
Shue was one semester short of earning her degree from Wellesley
College when she dropped out to pursue her acting career. After
memorable roles in movies like “Karate Kid,”
“Adventures in Babysitting,” and “Leaving Las
Vegas” she returned to school and graduated from Harvard
University last spring with a degree in political science.
“It’s incredible how nerdy you become,” Shue
said about her return to academia.
She also said that her courses and countless papers left her
exhausted.
“I really did need a break after college,” she said.
“That was the hardest film I ever filmed.”
