Julia Stiles Wanted to Be Just Like Kat Stratford, Too

Larisa Oleynik, who performed Kat’s child sister, Bianca, recollects rewatching “10 Issues” not too long ago. “The factor I like a lot — and I’m going to get emotional — is, she’s so earnest,” Oleynik stated. “She’s so real. And to me, that’s the most lovely factor about Julia’s portrayal of that character. It’s coming from a deeply heartfelt, weak, delicate, insanely clever place,” she stated, whereas including: “I don’t suppose anybody else would have been in a position to be that actual.”

Stiles began performing as a 12-year-old in New York’s La MaMa Experimental Theatre Membership, however had a tough time discovering her place in movie. “I used to be a 17-year-old lady, auditioning for romantic comedies and commercials and TV reveals and at all times being instructed, ‘You’re too critical,’” she stated. “, ‘Smile. You’re too angsty.’” That modified when she learn the “10 Issues” script. “It was the primary time that I had learn a personality in a teenage romantic comedy that spoke to me,” she stated.

As Oleynik remembers it, Stiles was that lady, “a cool, downtown New Yorker” who, although just a few months Oleynik’s senior, “appeared a lot extra mature.” Earlier than the “10 Issues” desk learn, Oleynik had gone to Fred Segal to purchase her real-life junior promenade gown, an indigo slip that wasn’t all that dissimilar to the promenade gown Kat wears within the film. “I actually, actually wished her approval,” Oleynik stated. “I bear in mind pondering, if Julia approves, I can go.”

IN 2002, ACCORDING TO THE self-appointed cultural anthropologists at Newsweek journal, there have been precisely three forms of teenage women in America. You could possibly be an Alpha: a blonde who cherished cheerleading, worshiped Gwyneth and Vogue, and managed to be “each bitchy and good.” You could possibly be a Beta, which was principally an aspiring Alpha; Betas reportedly took weight loss supplements as after-school snacks, spent after-prom at a motel, and have been, tragically, brunette. Or you may be part of a rising cohort of Gamma Women: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”-watching, flare-jeans-wearing freethinkers who have been “obsessive about Shakespeare,” dated the “class smartass,” and subscribed to Jane journal. The poster baby for the Gamma Woman: Julia Stiles.