Julia Stiles - ‘I ran in the other direction from fame’

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0:53Hello and welcome to How to Fail. This is the podcast where every week I ask a new guest about three times they think they've failed in their life and what, if anything, they learn along the way. Food and all that stuff was so stressful. It was always, I just like couldn't help but have a disordered relationship with it all. I dance all the time in my house, in my living room. You know, I'll even dance on the sidewalk. I don't care. Taylor Swift walked in the room and it was like all the air. it's like the whole, you could just feel it. For many of us who grew up in the 90s, Julia Stiles would have been an integral part of our coming of age.

1:34Her portrayal of the clever, acerbic cat in 10 Things I Hate About You was a radical reinvention of the teenage female rom-com lead and gave us permission to be unapologetically ourselves. Her roles in Save the Last Dance and Mona Lisa Smiles spoke to our adolescent feminist awakenings and catapulted Stiles to stardom. And just like the heroine she played, Stiles did things a bit differently. At the height of her teenage fame, she chose to study English at Columbia University, continuing to act throughout her degree, most notably in the first of four Jason Bourne films. After graduation, her career was varied and interesting, from big screen reinventions of Shakespeare classics to a vengeance-seeking sexual assault survivor in Dexter, which earned her an Emmy nomination.

2:25But it was while playing a journalist in the 2019 hit Hustlers that she felt able to take more control of her professional life. Her latest project is her directorial debut, the feature film Wish You Were Here, which Stiles also produced and co-wrote. As a mother of three, Stiles said that her parenting informed her ability to direct. Because mums, or women in general, have to be very good at multitasking, she says. You have to be good at managing a budget. You have to be good at managing your time. You have to take care of other people, but also nudge them in a certain direction. And you have to function well with very little sleep.

3:07Julia Stiles, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm going to soak that in for a second. I'm going to take that intro in. That was very nice to hear. Please do. Well, it came from the heart because I feel that I have grown up with you. And I want to say thank you so much for that, for giving us all permission to be ourselves. But I want to start with your directorial debut with Wish You Were Here. You went into directing this movie with a five month old. I did. I did. How was that experience? I mean, it was wild. It was exhilarating. I was obviously exhausted, but I was also completely energized because I was finally making my first movie as a director, because there's a bit of a high that you have after you give birth to a baby.

3:56I definitely have to say that I did not do it alone. I had a lot of support. But I look back on it and I'm like, whoa. Yeah, it was pretty nuts. You did a fantastic job. Thank you. Thanks. And it's such an interesting film because whilst there is a romantic comedy element, It is in no way corny. It's very poignant and very deep. How easy or difficult a line was that for you to tread? I remember early on, because I adapted the screenplay from a book by Rene Carlino, and I remember getting notes on the script early on that were, and also my director's cut even, that were like, well, what is this movie?

4:33Is it a comedy or is it a drama? Or it's like the first part of the movie is funny, but then the last part of the movie is really sad. And that was very intentional for me because it was, A, what I responded to about the book, that you could have moments where you're laughing and then all of a sudden you're crying and then you're laughing and crying at the same time. And I think that's much like life. But I also was aware of kind of trying to draw the audience in with lightness and humor and almost the sort of romantic comedy that we're used to. and then what I loved about the book and I tried to do in the movie is that despite how young the main characters are and how new this romance is it's actually really deep and and touches on things that that are just more timeless more I don't want to say heavy but like just something a lot more grounded than just you know a rom-com.

5:25Yes well it strikes me that it's about lives lived and unlived without giving too much away. So there's this real resonance to it. I think you do a beautiful job of that balance. But I understand that at one point, your script supervisor said to you that you had to stop qualifying your ideas. Please tell us that story. I'm so interested in it. Yes. And thank you for specifying. Qualifying was a good way to put it, because I sort of reduced it to stop apologizing. But actually, she did say stop apologizing, but I think what she meant was stop qualifying. She didn't mean that I was saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

6:05She meant that I was explaining. Every time I would say, this is what I need for my vision or this is what I need on set, I explained and I explained and I explained almost as if I was asking permission. And I think ultimately she was telling me to stop being so accommodating. You know, at a certain point, you have to put your foot down and say, well, I need a white teacup and I'm going to wait for the white teacup until it gets here. Yes. Stepping into your power. And I wonder, because female directors are still comparatively rare, which seems a ludicrous thing to say in 2025. But how much of that do you think is to do with this social conditioning that a certain kind of cis woman has, which is to ask for permission and to people please?

6:49Yeah. I mean, it definitely comes from being an actress. As an actress, you are, it's so ingrained in me to want to make sure that I'm likable. Like, I don't want to rub people the wrong way. Part of being an actress is you have to get cast in any given part. And that means that the people making that decision have to like you. And so I think I wasn't even aware of, oh, now I have to be front footed about everything. I have to be thinking 10 steps ahead of everyone else anticipating the things that I'm going to need. And if for whatever reason, somebody thinks that I'm being too aggressive or too assertive, it doesn't matter.

7:27Who cares? That's so interesting that you say that, given that I started off this introduction talking about one of my favorite movies of all time, which is 10 Things I Hate About You, and the role of Kat, who is someone who is angsty and intelligent and unapologetically not part of the in crowd at high school. And it's difficult to remember now, but that was so radical at the time. And I wonder how much that role gave you a sort of liberating ability to be someone more like Kat. Right. I mean, it was really rare for the time. And I remember specifically being an auditioning actress at 17 and there was a trend in rom-coms and just teen romances.

8:16And it was like one movie after another, I was not getting the part. And I would go to commercial auditions and they would tell me to be more bubbly and more effervescent and not so serious and smile more and be sexier. And you're constantly being judged like any auditioning actor. But when I read the part of cat, I was like, oh my God, this is so refreshing because she is so assertive. Now I will say, I think it was almost aspirational for me. I don't think, I stepped into that role gratefully and gleefully because I was like, oh, I get to be like assertive cat 2.0. And I didn't necessarily do that in my own life.

8:55Even later in life. And how old were you at the time that you got cat? 17. Okay. So yes, it's very kind of potent time to have that. Yeah. experience. And I didn't even see examples of characters like that, women like that, young women like that, that much, particularly in high school movies. Yeah. Let's get onto your failures, because I think the first one speaks to a lot of what we've been talking about, which is not keeping in touch with your closest friends. And the reason I think it pertains to what we've been talking about is because you started working very young. So take us back to you grew up in New York and you wrote a letter to a theatre director.

9:35Is that right? I did. My parents, my mom's an artist, and my parents were really good friends with a production designer and the founder of this very fringe theater company that would do shows in downtown Manhattan. And they would hang out and have dinners together. And I remember being very outgoing and loving, like, you know, school plays and performances. And I always played dress up. And growing up in New York City, we didn't have a backyard. So my backyard was my imagination. and I would mimic what I saw on TV. And they said they had a part for a kid. And I guess, yeah, I had the chutzpah to be like, I wrote a letter.

10:17I said all the characters that I had made up and I could bring the costume. I don't know, something really ridiculously precocious. But they gave me a part in my first play with them that was not speaking. I think I was like napping on the floor the whole time. and then slowly the roles got bigger and bigger and then I was part of the company and they helped me find an agent and then I started auditioning. And is that partly why you struggle to keep in touch with close friends because you work so much of the time? Now I think it's actually being a parent probably and all of my friends have moved out of New York City and most of them have their own families and so we just all get busy.

11:00But I think it's also technology. Like you think that you're keeping in touch with your friends over when you when you think about them and you text message. But it's not really the same as like sitting down and having a coffee or having somebody over, you know, or going on vacation. I used to go on vacation with my girlfriends, but now now we're lucky if we can plan, you know, a coffee. I'm trying to make more of an effort now. And I will say that the text messaging thing or voice memos are really nice. I'm a big fan of sending a voice memo as though it's like a voicemail. But for some reason, we listen to the voice memo more.

11:31That feels closer and just letting them know that I'm thinking about them. But I guess I lament that I feel like I'm a terrible friend because even though I love my friends and I care about them and I do want to keep in touch with them, time will pass. And then when we do reunite, I'm like something amazing or tragic, whatever might have happened in their life. And I'm like, what? I didn't know about this. Why didn't you tell me? Yeah. So I think you have to really make a conscious effort to ask the questions and check in on your friends. Do you think they think you're a bad friend? No, no. I mean, I hope not.

12:07No, no, I think everybody understands at this point in life that, you know, we're just off in different directions and everybody's busy. And the best thing about the thing that I've learned from having to think about this for your podcast is the really, really deep closest friends that have been around the longest. it's like riding a bicycle the minute you do catch up with them whether it's in person or over the phone uh everything falls back into place and it's like you haven't missed a beat i totally agree i actually wrote a book about friendship and so this is something that completely fascinates me and i think the most important metric of friendship is that generosity of spirit so that you don't feel guilty if you if life is too busy to constantly be in touch the idea that when you do see each other you can pick up where you left off is so generous.

12:59Yes, that is brilliant. And that is so true because I think of my handful, I can count them less than one hand, closest friends, they never put that pressure on me of like, or the holding a grudge or resentment about, oh, well, you didn't call me, you know, on my dog's birthday or you didn't, you know, whatever it is. Or like, it's just, we're not holding on to that. Yeah. How has fame affected your approach to friendship? That is a relationship that I've been navigating for quite some time. So I would say that I don't stress about it and I don't think about it as much now in terms of being open to friendships and new friendships.

13:41I think in my 20s, I probably was a little bit more guarded. I'm not sure. I think I have a good sense. I just have an innate sense of like, I can smell if something's off. but other than that I like tend to I don't really think about it like I'm I'm open to being friends with you if we are interested in the same things and we have a good vibe going because I was very interested by the thing that I mentioned in the introduction about that decision to study English at Columbia when you could have very easily sort of been back to back in lead movies what was important for you about that decision at that stage?

14:22There was so much. A, I just kind of always knew that I was going to go to college or I wanted to go to college and I wanted to have that experience. I think now in retrospect, I look back on college and I think, oh, I was definitely like running in the other direction from fame or there was something about this change in my life that made me uncomfortable and school was something that I could control. I could go to university and focus on other things. And it would help me make sense of this transitional time in my life. And I wasn't thinking strategically necessarily about my career. Like, I'm sure I had agents and managers, whatever, telling me, like, what?

15:04You want to go to college? Like, my freshman year of college, I think, Save the Last Dance Baby came out. I was doing promotion for something. And the interviews were always about, oh, she's a freshman in college. And so then I was like, well, I have to finish. I can't. This is cheap if I brag that I've started college, but I don't actually graduate. I look back on that experience and I was in a bit of a fishbowl, but I was totally pretending that I wasn't, which is, I guess, healthy. Yeah, definitely. You're in a state of functional denial. Yeah, functional denial. Exactly. What was the discomfort that you mentioned there, the fact that you wanted to make a move away from fame?

15:41Well, no, it's just a radical shift in anyone's life to be in people's television sets and in a movie, have a recognizable face. I mean, it comes in all different forms, but I'll say like a benign form is that you walk down the street and somebody does a double take and they think that like, oh, do I know you from somewhere? So it's just this, it's like a subtle, subtle, but radical shift in someone's life. And as a performer, it's what you want, because it means that people are wanting to watch what you do or they're interested in the stories that you tell. But especially as a teenager, you know, 17, 18, 19 years old, it's crazy.

16:19I mean, it's crazy. And so I think there was a part of me that knew, oh, you know, you're doing all these interviews talking about yourself. And, you know, I just knew that I was like, you can't become too obsessed with yourself. You have to go and do other things. And so college was another thing. Yeah. It must have been so difficult as a teenager. I mean, just imagining myself at that age when I was basically watching your movies. That would have been a very difficult thing to cope with. I mean, and I think there was a lot that was exciting about it, too. But but yeah, and I'm sure I flailed.

16:55Like I had I probably seem like I'm really put together, but I had a lot of I had a lot of like I wasn't struggling. I just was like along for this ride that was exhilarating and then also kind of scary. And so was figuring out how to deal with it all through my 20s, really. Did you have good friends then to help you through? I mean, perhaps some of your friends were people that you acted with. You know, I keep in touch with actors that I work with much more now than I did then. It always felt like we would go to set and have this really intense connection. and we'll be working together to finish the movie and then the movie's finished and we all go home and that's pretty much it at that time.

17:41My friendships, I latched, some of my best friends I made in college and I latched onto them as like, you're with me regardless. Are they still your friends now? Yes. Great. You see, you're a great friend. In fact, I called one of my dearest, bestest, bestest friends and we lose touch all the time, but we catch up when we can. She, I met in college. We went to, on spring break, we went on vacation together. And now I tell, I had called her, I left her a voice memo the other night, because I was like, do you know that I tell the story to my middle son every night before he goes to bed? The story of like so-and-so and the broken arm.

18:23And it was something that happened on this vacation. And I obviously water it down for kids, but it was just to let her know that I was thinking about her. That's beautiful. What you tell the story every night. He's just obsessed with it. It's become, he asks for it. Yes.

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19:12When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp. The secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. So you were talking about college there, and I referred to this in the introduction, that you got your role in the Jason Bourne movies when you were still at college. Yes. Tell us the story of how you found out you got that role.

19:50It was so ridiculous. I look back on it now. I can visualize it. I was in my tiny little freshman year dorm room, was sent the sides because they wouldn't release the script for privacy reasons. What's the sides? Sides is like just the scene that you're in. Usually when you audition for something, they send you sides. So you're just reading the scene that you're in or one of the scenes that they want you to read, but you can't read the whole script. So they sent me the sides and the whole package was like, oh, Matt Damon's going to be in it and Doug Liman is directing it. It's based on this book series, Universal Studios.

20:30And I was like, yeah, that's cool, but I have final exams coming up. Like, how am I going to fly to the Czech Republic? and luckily somebody talked to me many people talked me out of that and I got on a plane and went to Prague and filmed the scene was really like one or two scenes that I was in where my and then my character was supposed to be thrown up against the wall and that was it that was going to be the end of her fate in the franchise and then many months later when they were finishing editing the film they were like we need you to come in and record ADR which is voice recording and the voice recording was breathing, like heavy breathing, so that when they recut the film, they could show that my character was still alive.

21:11And then she survived and I got to go on and make three more movies. What was that experience like? Because quite a change in pace for you in terms of the sort of acting that you were doing. Yeah, I mean, it was remarkable. It was like amazing. I feel so lucky to be a part of that franchise because it was on the forefront of changing the way action movies looked. The female characters in those movies got to do a whole lot more. And amazing directors like Doug Liman, who I keep in touch with, got the rights to the book, started the franchise, designed the look of the first film, cast Matt Damon, and then Paul Greengrass in the next three movies that I got to do with them.

21:56And I learned so much from them. I mean, I learned so much. Paul Greengrass is one of the loveliest, kindest human beings and also carrying the stress of what became a giant action franchise. And every movie that they ended up making after that, it's like the budgets got bigger and the ways that they had to impress the audiences got bigger and bigger and the entourages got bigger. And he was like, held on to his visionariness as a director. And he could pivot and be spontaneous, even though they were spending all this money and time and prep on action sequences. And through all of that, I took away from the experience that he was like, managing all that, but still really, really kind and decent to every single person that worked on those films.

22:43Beautiful. And I wish I could go back in time and watch The Bourne Identity again for the first time, because you're so right, it completely revolutionized that kind of movie. It did, it did. The handheld camera work, the casting Franca Patente and the way that they filmed in Europe and making it look like a gritty, almost European or indie film. And yet, yeah, it was really groundbreaking at the time. And Matt Damon was a huge star, but he wasn't considered an action hero. He was the writer, the cerebral, the, you know, yeah. Yeah. Well, your second failure is to do with a different film, equally iconic, Save the Last Dance.

23:23Yes. And your second failure, which actually broke my heart to read it, is that you quit dance lessons after that movie. Yeah, I mean, not consciously, but I look back on in the 20 years since or whatever, 25 years since we made that movie, I haven't been to a single formal dance class. Now, I absolutely love to dance and that has not gone away and that will never go away. and I dance all the time in my house, in my living room. You know, I'll even dance on the sidewalk. I don't care. Like I'll walk down a New York City street with my headphones on and I will catch myself like shimmying a little bit.

23:56And then I have to go, oh my God, I'm in public. You can't do that. So my love of dance has not gone away. But I haven't been to a formal class at all. There was a period of time during the pandemic where I would do like virtual dance classes. There were studios online that would post, like, there were great teachers that would post their own, like, dance class. And I would do that in the privacy of my own home. And it's because, you know, am I lazy? Maybe. But it's also the self-consciousness of, like, dancing in front of, I've done aqua zumba, which is like zumba inside a pool so nobody can see what your body is doing.

24:35No, but like, I guess it's just being, yeah, being self-conscious, which is such a shame. I should get over that. And I will. I will. I've had friends who've wanted me to go to like the, you know, whatever dance classes that are at their gym or something. And eventually I'll drag myself to do it. And is the self-consciousness to do with, Save the Last Dance and having seen yourself on screen or what the audition scene then became in terms of it becoming a meme and being reinvented by TikTok. Right. Was that all part of it? I mean, dancers are a judgmental group. They can be. They're also a very supportive group.

25:16Yeah. It sounds stupid when I say it out loud now because like, who cares? But I think that if I went to like a serious, whether it's ballet or hip hop kind of dance class I would be I would feel like I was being judged based on that movie and like I'm supposed to be a professional dancer um but yeah fuck it I'll just I'm gonna put my leggings on and find a class I just have to find the right class the one that would be like really fun for me you could get a private dance class I could yeah wow I can't believe I never thought of that I could get someone to come to your house well I had I had uh I did a tv show a British tv show actually um where there was one scene where we were had to dance it was a tango and I got to do tango lessons and I fucking loved it so much that I definitely need to recreate that kind of joy in in in my life talk to me about your love of dance and how early that started and what it represents for you.

26:17Yeah, I mean, I started taking modern dance classes in elementary school, and there was a teacher, Ellen Robbins, who taught children's dance classes at Dance Theatre Workshop in New York. And Claire Danes actually, I think, also took those classes. We would have our like formal, it wasn't loosey-goosey modern dance. It was like Martha Graham, kind of very structured and rooted in ballet. But the last half hour of the class, somebody got to pick a record and she played records um and we were allowed to improvise and I'm sure it looked ridiculous and silly but it always gave me that love of like the like the the rather than just the repetition and the structure and getting the steps right this was like moving your body from the inside out pretty cute do you think you're a perfectionist I can be yeah totally I can be because that kind of improvisation is very good for people who struggle with perfectionism.