- Shue was worried she would be treated as a superstar when she began at her new college - but students were more interested in Natalie Portman.
- Shooting was delayed while she recovered from an torn Achilles tendon sustained during HOLLOW MAN (2000) filming.
- Associated with prostitutes and interviewed them on the strip in Las Vegas for her role in LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1995).
- Was cast as Jennifer in BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (1989), and all the closing shots of BACK TO THE FUTURE 1985) were re-shot for the beginning of this film. Claudia Wells, (Jennifer in BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985)) had disappeared from the acting scene in 1987 for undisclosed reasons.
- She was auditioned for the Sherilyn Fenn role in OF MICE AND MEN.
- Shue promptly landed a number of jobs pushing everything from Hellmann's Mayonnaise to Burger King, and she managed to keep working as an actor during her college studies at Wellesley and Harvard.
- Studying gymnastics as a teen suffered from bulimia.
- Elisabeth Shue's character's surname in HOLLOW MAN, McKay, is the same of her last character, Molly McKay, from Molly.
- Co-starring with Peter Sarsgaard in the Off-Broadway Revival of BURN THIS by Lanford Wilson (December 2002)
- Plays several sports but is a champion in gymnastics and soccer.
- Eye color: Brown
- Broke into television at age 16 playing a chipper, uniformed spokesclerk in the first of a series of 20 national Burger King commercials
- Son is named after her late brother, William, who died while on vacation with the family when the tire swing he was on broke and he fell onto a broken tree branch. He was impaled and died while his siblings looked on.
- Nickname: Lisa
- Nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role at Screen Actors Guild Awards for LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1996)
- Nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama at Golden Globe Awards for LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1996)
- Nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role at BAFTA Awards for LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1996)
- Nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role at Academy Awards for LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1996)
Quotes- "I don't have high expectations anymore. Maybe they've just been beaten out of me." - Movieline. August 2000.
- "After Leaving Las Vegas I did assume that things would get a lot easier than they've been. But it's just been a mirror of the way my career's been from the beginning, so for it to have changed would have been strange. My career has never been perfect." - Movieline. August 2000.
- "I spent my whole life trying to play the games males play."
- "I understand now that the vulnerability I've always felt is the greatest strength a person can have. You can't experience life without feeling life. What I've learned is that being vulnerable to somebody you love is not a weakness, it's a strength."
- "Sadness, joy, wonder -- all feelings come from a place of grounded strength that comes from trust in yourself. We spend so much time trying to control our feelings out of fear that something may happen, that somebody may not love us, or walk away or die. It's only when you stop living in that fear of what other people might do to you or how they will react, only then are you free to be alive."
Awards- National Society of Film Critics Awards: Best Actress, LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1996)
- Chicago Film Critics Association Awards: Best Actress, LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1996)
- Dallas-Forth Worth Film Critics Association Awards: Best Actor, LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1996)
- Independent Spirit Awards: Best Female Lead, LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1996)
- Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards: Best Actress, LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1995)
- Paris Film Festival: Best Actress, ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING (1988)
- Young Artist Awards: Best Young Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Musical, Comedy, Adventure or Drama, THE KARATE KID (1985)
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