10 Best Performances In Buffy The Vampire Slayer
6. Eliza Dushku - Faith Lehane
Like Angel, Faith Lehane was able to improve as she made her way to the spin-off, but it was in Buffy where Eliza Dushku proved just how good an actress she is. Faith went through a lot on her one-season (and a little bit) tenure on the show, starting as the new, rogue Slayer in town before she accidentally kills a guy and gets a taste for murder. She's a messed up kid, sure, but thanks to Dushku she's also innocent, redeemable and oddly likeable.
Starting off in the early stages of Season Three, Faith proves right away to be something special, and the perfect foil for Buffy's moral and grounded worldly outlook. Faith likes loud music, racy dancing, and she loves the thrill of being a Slayer.
So at first, she's kind of fun. She's nuts, but in the good way. But as soon as she gets a taste of greater violence and destruction, Dushku transports Faith from fun and the good kind of crazy to dangerous and cold in a blink. Her decent into darkness - paired with a creepy but genuine father/daughter relationship with Big Bad Richard Wilkins - is fantastic to watch and no once does Dushku miss a beat.
By Season Seven (thanks to her stint on Angel) she actually is a good guy again, and her morals are in check enough for her to grow as a friend and leader. And she's just as fun to watch as she was in Season Three.