BBC Films - March 6, 2003

 Julia Stiles - A Guy Thing 

Julia Stiles started her acting career at a young age, making her film debut aged 15 in I Love You, I Love You Not. After a few minor roles, she hit the big time with 10 Things I Hate About You. She followed this with appearances in Save the Last Dance and The Bourne Identity. Now she stars opposite Jason Lee and Selma Blair in the romantic comedy A Guy Thing.

This is a different kind of character for you to play...

Yeah. It was a relief to play someone really klutzy! She's very sarcastic and it was great. We laughed on set all day long. I usually play more serious roles but this was a riot.

How was it working with Jason Lee?

We spent a lot of time trying to make each other laugh. I think a lot of my performance is me laughing at how funny Jason is, and not really acting.

Did you have a certain way of making the comedy work?

Jason and I discovered that we both find the same kinds of things funny. So we got into this quick banter, a rhythm almost like music, where you kind of have a shorthand. He would say or do one thing and I would follow it up. That kind of shorthand is such a relief, because it would be hard to work with someone you didn't share that with in a movie like this. Jason and Selma are naturally funny. It was very liberating because it takes quite a lot of time to work out what's funny and what isn't funny.

You and Selma have worked together before. Did you gang up on Jason a lot?

Jason did all the teasing! I basically stole all Jason Lee's jokes and when I went back to school after the movie finished, everybody thought I was really funny. But I was just quoting Jason Lee. He has a running joke that he uses, and I've taken it now and it's all mine!


Article by Alana Lee
Originally published at BBC Films - Posted on March 6, 2003