About the cast: Julia Stiles

Julia Stiles plays Joan Brandwyn, a student who is intrigued by Katherine Watson's new ideas.

Stiles has exhibited a rare sophistication in the characters she has played in film, television and on stage. Recently she portrayed Viola in the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of Twelfth Night in Central Park alongside Kristen Johnston, Christopher Lloyd and Jimmy Smits.

Stiles earned critical praise starring in Patrick Stettner's independent feature, The Business of Strangers opposite Stockard Channing. The film premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. She also starred in three Shakespeare-inspired projects Tim Blake Nelson's O, a contemporary adaptation of Othello, Michael Almereyda's Hamlet opposite Ethan Hawke and the acclaimed comedy hit Ten Things I Hate About You, for which she earned an MTV Movie Award for Best Female Breakthrough Performance in June 2000 and the Chicago Film Critics Award for Most Promising Actress. Ten Things is loosely based on The Taming of the Shrew.

Additional film credits include the hit romance Save the Last Dance, for which she received two MTV Movie Awards, including Best Actress. Stiles is currently developing an adaptation of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar in which she will star and serve as producer.

Stiles also appeared in David Mamet's State & Main with William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Sarah Jessica Parker. The film won a 2000 National Board of Review Award for Best Ensemble Cast. She also made a lasting impression with her riveting performance in Michael Steinberg's critically acclaimed drama Wicked, which premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and the Prague Film Festival, where Stiles won the Best Actress Award. Other films include A Guy Thing opposite Jason Lee and Selma Blair, Alan J. Pakula's The Devil's Own with Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt, I Love You, I Love You Not with Claire Danes and M. Night Shyamalan's Wide Awake with Rosie O'Donnell.

As a writer, Stiles' screenplay, The Anarchist's Daughter, was chosen as one of 12 scripts to be included in the Sundance Institute's Writers' Lab.

On television, Stiles starred in the ambitious NBC mini-series The Sixties with Jerry O'Connell and Josh Charles. She also starred opposite Ellen Barkin and Oprah Winfrey in the ABC/Harpo Films special presentation Before Women Had Wings. Additionally, she received critical praise for her performance as a young unwed mother, opposite Isabella Rossellini, in an episode of the CBS drama Chicago Hope.

Stiles began her career on the New York stage, appearing in a number of plays at the La Mama Theater and the Kitchen Theater including the Obie Award-winning Everyday Newt Burman, Matthew: School of Life. Stiles also starred in Mac Welmann's The Sandalwood Box. Most recently, Stiles shared the stage with Gloria Reuben and Mary Testa in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues in New York.

Recently, she starred in the hit adventure The Bourne Identity with Matt Damon. Upcoming for Stiles is an as-yet-untitled romance directed by Martha Coolidge and John Turturro's Romance and Cigarettes with James Gandolfini and Susan Sarandon.