Elisabeth Shue

Elisabeth Shue
Elisabeth Judson Shueis an American actress, known for her roles in the films The Karate Kid, Adventures in Babysitting, Cocktail, Back to the Future Part II, Back to the Future Part III, Soapdish, Leaving Las Vegas, The Saint, and Hollow Man. She has won several acting awards and has been nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. She starred as Julie Finlay in the CBS police drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation from 2012 to 2015...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth6 October 1963
CountryUnited States of America
I was on my own at Wellesley, surrounded by a lot of young women who were motivated and intellectually curious. I started to read because I was required to do so for class, but I soon found myself enjoying the seclusion of the library. I came to see reading as an important way to learn about people, including myself.
She has a wisdom beyond her years. But what I love about her most is that she is a girl. Her playfulness and her appreciation for where she is, is so strong that it re-inspires you. She has a beautiful imagination, and she believes the circumstances of the characters. She's in the moment, and she has great instincts, and she works hard. It's not just instinct. She's brilliant.
She reminds you of the joyfulness that you felt when you first started and reminds you to never let that go.
She is a little girl. Her playful spirit is very much alive when she's not working. Even when she is working, she comes, and she runs and hugs everybody in the morning, and her beautiful smile just sort of forces everybody, pushes them, to open up to the day.
I may be the girl next door, but you wouldn't want to live next to me.
Today I still feel like the most illiterate person ever to have roamed the campuses of Wellesley and Harvard, where I later transferred. I remain intimidated by all the books I haven't read, but over the years I've come to realize that being a student is a lifelong adventure.
The hard thing about 'The Saint' was that my character was supposed to die, but then they reshot the ending based on tests and she lives. I created the character based on her dying - she would never have been as innocent otherwise. So I didn't have high expectations for that film.
Like, that was weird in 'Hamlet 2,' because I played myself there, fully myself, but then I realized, 'Oh, I'm not playing myself. I'm some weird version of myself.' So as an actress, you're always playing something, I don't even know who I am, how could I become me? I don't know what that is.
The movie I'm really excited about that I had really fun doing is 'Feed the Dog.' It's with Nat Wolff and Selena Gomez. It's really fun. It's raunchy, like 'Superbad' meets 'Risky Business,' kind of. I got to be a really fun character, an out-there Mrs. Robinson-type character. I get to seduce Nat.
What keeps this industry challenging as an actor is that you never know how something will turn out. The ups and downs are constant. You're never just smoothly sailing along. You're always going to be on loose footing. That's what ultimately now I expect and accept and that doesn't scare me as much.
I may look like the girl next door, but you wouldn't want to live next door to me.
I don't think 'Cocktail' was a perfect critical success, but it touched a vein in our culture.
We didn't have enough money, or horses of our own I would take an old saddle and put it on a swing every day, pretending I was on a horse. It's still my dream to have a horse one day.
I was a complete unknown when I did 'Karate Kid.' I'd just done a pilot for a TV show called 'Call to Glory.' And I sat down with John Avildsen and brought still pictures from the show. I brought pictures! At that point, I would've been happy to be in a dog-food commercial.