The prince and her 

Julia Stiles talks movies, present and future

"You know, I think I would date the rock star Prince actually," laughs Julia Stiles from the comfort of her London apartment after a long day of rehearsals. "Because it would be more fun, [and you] wouldn't have to worry about people ironing your newspapers before you had your tea," she adds, cryptically referring to a scene in her latest movie.

Stiles is enjoying life right now as the release of the romantic comedy The Prince and Me coincides with preparations for Oleanna -- a play written by David Mamet in which she will also star.

"I eat, sleep and breathe this play, but it is actually really enjoyable and wonderful and I don't feel like I am overextended. It is such a great challenge. I am really happy," she enthusiastically contends.

In order to commit to the play, Stiles took a semester off from studies at Columbia. The choice came easily for her: "[I'm] lucky that I don't have to be searching for what I want to do after school. It is more something that I can do for my own enjoyment." She also notes that the security her career provides means that I don't have to worry about going to graduate school or getting into certain graduate schools. I don't have to worry about grades except for my own pride really."

Paige, the character she plays in The Prince and Me, has slightly a different attitude -- focussing all her attention on school until a rather charming Danish prince comes into the picture. Interestingly, Stiles notes a similarity to Paige that caused some difficulties: "It is very easy for me, Julia, to be guarded and ... not address certain things that I think Paige was not addressing and I had to sort of confront myself [to play this role]. So it was more like a personal stretch, whereas playing another character... much different from me [the challenge is] I still have to find similarities -- I still have to find a way to connect to it."

Although fully immersed with the play right now, Stiles is already planning to work with David Mamet again for her next feature. However, most of the public buzz around Stiles will be in the sequel to the highly successful The Bourne Identity, which she just rapped up filming. Her role in this one is much more extensive than the first movie -- "It couldn't have gotten smaller than in the first one," jokes Stiles as most people do not even remember her being in the The Bourne Identity. "My character [has] started a new life and gotten out of the world of the CIA because of what happened in the last film ... [and] Jason Bourne also knows that I was his last link to the CIA so he is trying to get me to tell him about his past," she reveals of her role in the sequel.

Despite being in The Bourne Identity and movies as diverse as Mona Lisa Smile and State and Main, Stiles seems to get type-cast in romantic teen comedies. She doesn't see it that way though. "I think it is very easy to be pigeonholed and have people offer you the same sort of parts because it was a repetition of what was successful. But I feel like all I can do is keep making choices based on what will excite me about going to work every day," she concludes.

Article by Ruslan Tracz
Originally published at UManitoba.ca - Posted on April 7, 2004