Legend has it that she was named Fairuza because her father, an expert in Persian culture, exclaimed that word the moment she was born, Fairuza meaning Turquoise in Persian, and Balk's eyes being of that color. Soon after her parents split, Fairuza became a world traveller. Raised for the first part of her life in San Francisco, she and her mother moved to Vancouver when Fairuza counted nine years of age. At the age of 11 she moved to London, where she attented various prestigious ballet and acting schools. At that age also, she was picked by the Walt Disney Company to star in the movie Return to Oz. In 1988 she moved to Paris to do more work as an actress, and by 1989 she was back in Vancouver, where she began to attend high school. Soon, however, she decided to take correspondence courses instead.
Balk was soon cast in The Craft, in which she forms a teenage coven along with Neve Campbell, Rachel True and Robin Tunney. This was particularly appropriate casting, as Fairuza is a wiccan in real life, and she owns a store dedicated to that religion, named Panpipes Magickal.