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Triggering Season 2 Dollhouse Memories with Eliza Dushku
by Troy Rogers
After being imprinted as a mother with a newborn
baby in the second season two episode of Dollhouse,
Eliza Dushku as Echo is imprinted as a seductive
college student in the October 9 episode "Belle
Chose" while Victor (Enver Gjokaj) is imprinted
as the psychotic nephew of a Dollhouse shareholder
played by former Battlestar Galactica actor Michael
Hogan. With much more imprinted downloadable Dollhouse
reality to be explored by Eliza Dusku in the sophomore
season of the Joss Whedon series, Echo is also
looking to herself for more answers to her identity
as she dances between her Caroline persona and
what Dollhouse fans know of Echo to date.
With "Belle Chose" about to air, we were imprinted as a human voice on a recent conference call with Dollhouse star Eliza Dushku who filled us in on how Echo will learn more about herself this season, how "Belle Chose" triggers thoughts of Caroline, and how Echo will progress in season two of Dollhouse on Fox.
THE DEADBOLT: How much closer will Echo get to rediscovering her true self this season?
ELIZA DUSHKU: Every single episode it’s been a little bit more. This next episode that we’re doing, we’ve been building. We have a real extreme. I’m scared to say too much, because the feeling I get when I read these scripts and I get the surprise of what’s next, I would never want to ruin for the viewers. But she really is becoming an entirely different character in many ways because she is getting sort of farther away from Caroline, even though Caroline is still the initial [phase of] her original self. So Caroline is in there, but I think she starts to realize there are things about Caroline that she’s discovering are unsavory or are not Echo.
The development of the character of Echo now has just been so exciting and so fascinating, because when the way our writers, and the way Joss [Whedon] can pick pieces from each of her experiences and weave them into this new character, is just fascinating. So you’ll absolutely see a whole new Echo this season.
THE DEADBOLT: In episode three you’re imprinted with the personality of a college student. Does that trigger any memories of Caroline?
 DUSHKU:
It does. You’ll have to watch the show. Definitely,
I start out as a college girl, but when an imprint
goes sort of haywire, I spend more of the episode
- I think it’s more serial killer than sorority
girl. Also, I don’t think Echo, I don’t think
Caroline, was a sorority girl. She’s a college
kid, but far from who Caroline was.
Other Conference Call Highlights:
How do you feel the direction
of this season is different from the last one?
DUSHKU: Well, there’s so much being cracked open and explored, especially with Echo having this new place that she’s in, in terms of what we picked up from last year. She had all of the personalities downloaded into her in one swift punch, and they’re not going away. So, she’s still tapping into these personalities. Sometimes it’s not in her control, and other times it is. Overall, she’s really absorbing things from her engagements, and from the Dollhouse, and she’s really becoming self-aware - not necessarily as Caroline, but as Echo, as her own person. So it’s definitely complicated.
It’s a little darker all around. We’ll explore some of the things, the origins of some of the other dolls and the other characters. And then bringing in a bunch of guest stars and fabulous people, so there’s a lot of exciting stuff happening with those things as well.
What trouble will Echo
run into in her attempts to save everyone?
DUSHKU: I’m sure every kind and all kinds, because it’s a Joss Whedon show. We’re starting episode seven, and there are so many directions and so many layers. It’s all over the map. Of course, a main storyline is Agent Ballard, who spent last season trying to get into the Dollhouse, and now that he’s in and Echo’s handler, he’s working with her, and they may possibly be trying to bring the Dollhouse down from the inside out.
Also, we get some backstory for Adelle and her superiors, and other Dollhouses around the country and around the world, just to give you an idea of how big the Rossum Corporation is. And Summer Glau will join us and play a programmer from the D.C. Dollhouse, and we’ll get an idea of the way the other houses are being run.
What do you like about
working with Joss and doing his shows?
 DUSHKU:
I would say, first and foremost, that I just
love the guy as a friend. He’s been a friend,
a brother, a teacher, a mentor. The other, obviously,
is just his talent. His skill is so beautiful
to me, and he’s just wildly creative and smart
and feminist and funny and dark and scary and
twisted, and he just combines it all in such
a sweet little package. He gets me every time.
You and Summer shot the
promo last year. Your two shows then were fighting
for the last spot in the lineup, and now she’s
obviously a part of your show. What’s the dynamic
like between you and her?
DUSHKU: She’s great. I love her. We’ve had such a good time the last two episodes. She just has come in with her A-game. She’s just a sweet, positive, fun actress. She’s great to play off of. Our characters have some backstory that we have to fight out, and so that's a lot of fun. Also, anyone that is from Joss’ past and he’s bringing back, I assume he had a great working relationship with them. He wouldn’t bring any bad eggs into our house, so I always can pretty much safely know that we’re going to have the cream of the crop coming back and coming in.
You mentioned that Echo
was kind of all over the place as a character.
As an actor, how do you approach that?
 DUSHKU:
She’s a full on schizophrenic.
As an actor, how do you
find that throughline that you can grab onto
when you’re playing the different parts that
she plays?
DUSHKU: It’s easier this year, because
we don’t have as much of that sort of dumbed-down-doll
Echo. First of all, the personalities, and now
this core Echo being a sum of all these parts,
including Caroline, but not really any of them.
She’s Echo.
There’s something grounded in that, and there’s a strength in the personality that she’s forming through that. She’s sort of picking, pulling information from all of the different people that she’s been, and as a result, she’s sort of coming to understand and form her own ethics and morals.
But she’s absorbing, and she’s thinking, and she’s processing, and so whereas last year it was from dumbed-down doll to this singular imprint, and it was always different. This year, you never know, but you always know at the same time that there’s something going on inside Echo that’s not just what you’re seeing on the surface. So, it’s sort of a little more grounding in that way, and fun for me to play.
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