13-03-2025
'So Cheap': Julia Stiles Said She Felt 'Slimy' When Harvey Weinstein Made Her Film A Gratuitous Dance Scene At 19
Julia Stiles has revealed that disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein once forced her to shoot a gratuitous dance scene in the 2000 film Down To You. The star explained that, at the time, Harvey wanted to 'capitalize' on the success of her dancing in other movies, but said that it was a 'dumb' call because it made no sense in the context of the film.
Julia, now 43, opened up during an appearance on Brett Goldstein's Films To Be Buried With podcast, and did not hold back as she explained why she was so unhappy with Harvey's involvement in the project.
As I'm sure you know, Harvey is currently in prison after more than 100 women came forward with allegations of rape, assault, or sexual harassment in 2017. In February 2020, he was found guilty of two of five felony counts in New York and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
In December 2022, Harvey was found guilty of three of seven charges in Los Angeles and sentenced to an additional 16 years in prison.
For reference, Julia arguably got her big break when she landed the role of Kat Stratford in the 1999 movie 10 Things I Hate About You, which she starred in alongside the likes of Heath Ledger and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In this cult classic, there is an infamous scene where Kat gets drunk at a house party and dances on a table.
That same year, Julia shot another movie where she got to show off her dancing prowess: Save The Last Dance, this wasn't actually released until 2001, with Down To You coming out between these two iconic films.
And the star opened up about her experience with this shoot when Brett asked her what the worst film she had ever seen was. Admitting that she didn't want to risk offending anybody, Julia began: 'Gratuitousness is annoying to me.'
Remaining diplomatic, she then said: 'I'll say one of my own movies, actually, that I think was executed very poorly. It was a movie called Down To You with Freddie Prinze Jr., he's lovely, a wonderful actor, but it was a time when teen romcoms were really popular, and the director [Kris Isacsson] wrote the script. He was a first-time director and he was a very, very intelligent, capable guy. The script was very good. And then Harvey Weinstein got his hands on it.'
'And [Harvey] decided to capitalize on this trend, and it just became dumb,' Julia went on. 'As far as I remember it — I haven't seen it in a long time — but I remember when we were filming it, we came back, and they were pouring money at it, like, in stupid ways. So when we went and did reshoots, I'm told that he decided that because of the success of Save The Last Dance or the success of 10 Things I Hate About You, with me dancing on the pool table, he needed to have me dancing in the film.'
Touchstone Pictures
Insisting that she has no issue with dancing in movies so long as it makes sense, the star explained: 'I'd make a whole movie dancing, I love to dance, but it was, like, dumb. It was like: 'OK, let's get her on a pool table,' y'know? It wasn't even imaginative, and I felt so slimy doing it, the whole time.'
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'I don't know if it actually made it in the film, but it was annoying,' Julia then confessed. 'Because I was like: 'Well, this is so cheap, and it's not adding to the story.''
She concluded: 'It was stupid, and we shouldn't have shot it.'
