popular thinking

MORE WITH ELIZA DUSHKU: Here is some more information from my day with Eliza Dushku and family on Saturday at Wizard World Boston, repackaged for easy reading.

Eliza Dushku doesn’t seem too broken up over the failure of her first TV starring vehicle, which FOX pulled the plug on before Tru Calling could wrap up all of the supernatural plot’s loose ends.
“I just bought my first house in L.A. thanks to Tru Calling,” Dushku said. “I have Max Factor and Coco Chanel (her two dogs, a golden retriever and chocolate lab/pit bull mix) who are waiting for me to come home.”
Even seeing other “I see dead people” shows such as Medium and The Ghost Whisperer rush onto the schedule doesn’t bother her.
“To be honest, I think everything happens for a reason. Tru Calling had some triumphs but Tru Calling also didn’t gel for some reason,” Dushku said. “I learned a lot. I carried the show.”
Plus, she said, she now has the freedom to pursue other opportunities, from a new film that begins shooting this week to an off-Broadway production, “Dog Sees God,” that begins rehearsals in early November.
The 24-year-old star came home this weekend (first-class airfare and Four Seasons stay paid for) to meet thousands of her fans at the Wizard World Boston convention. Signing autographs on Saturday, Dushku sat between her father, Philip, and her childhood friend, Suzanne, while her mother, Judy, and stepfather arrived later and sat behind her near longtime boyfriend Michael Bortone and his family.
Of all of the rumors she has heard, the one that made Dushku laugh most was the notion that she dated Ben Affleck and Matt Damon at the same time.
“That’s not a bad sandwich to be in!” she joked. “Sorry, honey.”
Bortone, who also attended Watertown High and played football there, is an aspiring actor who appears in a national TV ad for Progressive Insurance and is shopping his own TV pilot about gamblers that he said resembles “a junior Sopranos.”
Dushku doesn’t read the online fan sites and message boards about her, and lives happily away from the rumor mill.
“I stay out of the US Weeklies and the In Touches,” she said. “My life isn’t so scandalous away from the cameras.”
Instead, Dushku and her boyfriend visited with Manny and the Ramirez family on Friday afternoon, enjoying a tour of Manny’s penthouse of the Ritz before receiving primo treatment at Friday night’s Sox-Yankees game.
“We were hanging with Manny last night, so I think I gave him good luck,” Dushku said Saturday upon hearing of his two home-run blasts.
Yesterday, they sat in the box in Foxboro for the Pats-Chargers game.
Dushku said she hoped to catch a production at the “amazing” new Arsenal Center theater in Watertown and swing by local hang Demo’s before heading back to La La Land for work.