TV & Movies
Julia Stiles Reveals Where Her 10 Things Character Would Be Today
Plus, the actor shares behind-the-scenes details about an iconic scene.
A sequel to the 1999 classic 10 Things I Hate About You is unlikely to happen anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean that the characters’ stories are completely over. In a new interview for Bustle’s One Nightstand, Julia Stiles revealed what she thinks her character Kat Stratford would be up to today. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t involve Heath Ledger’s Patrick.
Where Would Kat Be Today?
After graduating from her dream school, Sarah Lawrence College, Stiles speculates that Kat would be living her best life completely offline.
“I think Kat would be living in the Berkshires in a cabin with no screens and no social media. Baking her own sourdough bread,” she said. “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.”
Kat ends high school on a joyful note after admitting to her feelings for her complicated love interest, Patrick, in a now-iconic poem reading. While poetry would probably always play a big part in her character’s life, Stiles didn’t say whether she thinks the lovebirds would still be together in this scenario.
Kat’s Emotional Poetry Recital
During the interview, Stiles also opened up about filming Kat’s memorable poem recital for Patrick from 10 Things, saying they did it in only two takes. The actor admitted that her tears weren’t scripted, and she didn’t expect “to get choked up and cry” during the scene.
“We were filming that scene at the end of the summer and the movie was going to be winding down, and it had been such a big experience for me,” she recalled. “It was my first studio movie leading role. I loved that part so much. I loved the rest of the cast. And we’d had such a fun time and it was coming to an end, and it just… the emotion kind of got to me.”
However, Stiles was forced to redo the poem reading and recreate her tears in post-production due to a technical glitch. “We had to rerecord all of the audio in ADR because there was a creaking dolly,” she said. “So I had to recreate the sound of me getting choked up months earlier.” It turns out lightning can strike the same place twice.
