Julia Stiles paid tribute to the late Heath Ledger on Tuesday night’s episode of “Dancing With the Stars.”
During Dedication Night, she performed a contemporary routine with her partner Ezra Sosa to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”; in the 1999 film “10 Things I Hate About You,” Ledger’s character, Patrick, sang the Frankie Valli number to Stiles’ Kat Stratford from the bleachers while she was at soccer practice.
©Touchstone Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
“I said, if we had to have someone with us on stage representing Heath’s legacy or the film, I said it had to be the whole cast. I begged them, each and every one of them, and they all rallied. They really did,” Stiles told Variety after the routine. She said that it was “really trippy” to see herself in the blue dress, similar to what she wore in the film, and her hair done in a similar style. “At 17 years old, I never would have thought that I’d be here at 45, celebrating my body, dancing on the show that I absolutely love and that fans are still interested in this movie and still moved and touched by this movie.”
Earlier in the week, Stiles opened up to Variety about the emotional rehearsals.
“I know that Dedication Night is emotional, but I thought I was distanced from it enough. Like, oh, it was so many years ago. Something about seeing clips from that movie and images and hearing my voice and hearing his voice is bringing back so many memories. It’s a lot,” she said, noting that she started crying while practicing. “One of the things that we really hope to do as performers is to make people feel something and have people care about the work that you do, and his memory lives on because it was such an incredible performance.”
Ledger died in January 2008 at the age of 28.