Julia Stiles has opened up about how her tears “ended up coming easily” when she filmed that emotional poetry recital scene in 10 Things I Hate About You.
The actor and director reflected on the memorable sequence, in which she reads a love poem to the late Heath Ledger’s character Patrick, basically listing off all the things she “hates” about him.
Speaking to Bustle, Julia – whose directorial debut Wish You Were Here is out now in the US – said when she first recounted the poem at the table read with the cast, she didn’t feel particularly emotional.
“I do remember the director saying, ‘She’ll be more emotional next time,’ so maybe that sunk in,” she recalled.
And in fact, they were right.
“The tears ended up coming easily – we’d had such a fun time [making the movie], and it was coming to an end, and it just… the emotion kind of got to me,” added Stiles.
Julia actually had to record the scene twice because of an issue with a creaky bit of film kit – but she still managed to recreate the sound of her getting choked up.
Discussing her co-star, who died in 2008 at the age of 28, she told E! News: “He was very kind and generous to me, which you know, when you’re an actress in your first leading role in a big studio movie, you need to feel comfortable with the other person. And he was very generous that way.”
Fast forward 26 years and Julia is now behind the camera instead of in front of it.
Wish You Were Here centres around a young woman who has a whirlwind night of romance with a man only to discover he is terminally ill – and she is then determined to help him spend his last days in a meaningful way.
It is an adaptation of the book by Renée Carlino and stars Isabelle Fuhrman and Mena Massoud as the lead romantic couple.
Discussing why she chose this movie for her directorial debut, Julia told Screen Rant: “I had been looking for something to direct for a long time, and couldn’t really find the right story. It was at, like, the tail end of Covid, or the big 2020 version of Covid, where we were all isolated from each other and only interacting through screens.
“Gabby Kono, who’s in the movie, sent me this book, and what struck me at that moment was that this was a love story about trying to connect with another human being on a deeper level than just through a dating app, or a love-at-first-sight kind of situation.
“It’s a meditation on the idea that we should be so lucky to create a lifetime of memories with somebody else.”
As for whether she believes Kat and Patrick from 10 Things I Hate About You would still be together if they existed in real life, the actor kept schtum.
But she did suggest that Kat would be “living in the Berkshires in a cabin with no screens and no social media. Baking her own sourdough bread”.
She told Bustle: “I think she would rebel against [being online]. Maybe she does poetry reads at the local coffee shop. She’s probably a lot happier out of high school.”
