How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Julia Stiles - ‘I struggled with body issues. It’s such a waste of f***ing time’

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

For many of us who grew up in the the 90s, Julia Stiles was an integral part of our coming of age. Her portrayal of the clever, acerbic Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You was a radical reinvention of the blonde teenage female rom-com lead. Her roles in Save The Last Dance and Mona Lisa Smile spoke to our adolescent feminist awakenings and catapulted Stiles to stardom. And, just like the heroines she played, Stiles chose to do things a bit differently. At the height of her teenage fame, she went to study English at Columbia University, continuing to act throughout her degree, most notably in the first of four Jason Bourne films. Her latest project is her directorial debut - the feature film, Wish You Were Here, which Stiles also produced and co-wrote. As a mother of three, Stiles said that her parenting informed her ability to direct. Grief, how to stop caring what everyone thinks and discussing the most difficult times in their lives - Elizabeth and Julia answer YOUR questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Have something to share of your own? I'd love to hear from you! Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com 🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount on your first Saily data plans! Use code [howtofail] at checkout. Download Saily app or go to to https://saily.com/howtofail ⛵ Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Mix Engineer: Josh Gibbs Studio Engineer: Sam Bair Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Carly Maile How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my wonderful listeners and viewers. This is a quick reminder to let you know that I've got a very special subscriber show, Failing With Friends, where my fantastic guests get to be agony aunts, uncles, or non-binary advice givers. You can join us there just by following the link in the show notes. As someone who loves a trip away, being connected to home and the rest of the world when I'm overseas is an absolute must. I mean, I need to have my daily FaceTime check-ins with my cat Huxley and, yeah, I guess catch up on work emails and stuff. Now, something that can make this all possible is Salie, a new eSIM service app that allows you to choose from several affordable eSIM plans in over 190 countries, so that with SAILI eSIM, you'll

always have a connection when needed. I hate the idea of getting lost abroad and not having access to maps on my phone when there's no wifi spot in sight. It's so stressful. So why not remove that stress completely with a local SIM card that saves you money on roaming fees? It's super simple to use, you only have to install it once, and it's much more affordable than roaming. You can also activate Salie's security features and browse more confidently. Download the Salie app in your app store. Use code HOWTOFAIL at checkout to get 15% Hello and welcome to How To Fail. This is the podcast where every week I ask a new guest

about three times they think they've failed in their life and what, if anything, they learn along the way. Food and all that stuff was so stressful. It was always, I just like couldn't help but have a disordered relationship with it all. And I'd dance all the time in my house, in my living room, you know, I'd even dance on the sidewalk, I don't care. Taylor Swift walked in the room and it was like all the air. It's like the whole, you could just feel it. For many of us who grew up in the 90s, Julia Stiles would have been an integral part of our coming of age.

Her portrayal of the clever, acerbic cat in 10 Things I Hate About You was a radical reinvention of the teenage female rom-com lead and gave us permission to be unapologetically ourselves. Her roles in Save the Last Dance and Mona Lisa Smile spoke to our adolescent feminist awakenings and catapulted Stiles to stardom. And just like the heroine she played, Stiles did things a bit differently. At the height of her teenage fame she chose to study English at Columbia University, continuing to act throughout her

degree, most notably in the first of four Jason Bourne films. After graduation, her career was varied and interesting, from big screen reinventions of Shakespeare classics to a vengeance seeking sexual assault survivor in Dexter, which earned her an Emmy nomination. But it was while playing a journalist in the 2019 hit Hustlers that she felt able to take more control of her professional life. Her latest project is her directorial debut,

the feature film Wish You Were Here, which Stiles also produced and co-wrote. As a mother of three, Stiles said that her parenting informed her ability to direct. Because moms or women in general have to be very good at multitasking, she says. You have to be good at managing a budget. You have to be good at managing your time. You have to take care of other people but also nudge them in a certain direction. And you have to function well with very little sleep. Julia Stiles, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm going to soak that in for a second. I'm going to take that intro in. That was very nice to hear. Please do. Well, it came from the heart because I feel that

I have grown up with you. And I want to say thank you so much for that, for giving us all permission to be ourselves. But I want to start with your directorial debut with Wish You Were Here. You went into directing this movie with a five-month-old. I did. I did. How was that experience? I mean, it was wild. It was exhilarating. I was obviously exhausted, but I was also completely energized because I was finally making my first movie as a director because there's a bit of a high that you have after you give birth to a baby. I definitely have to say that I did not do

it alone I had a lot of support but I look back on it and I'm like whoa yeah it was pretty nuts. You did a fantastic job. Thank you. Thanks. And it's such an interesting film because whilst there is a romantic comedy element, it is in no way corny. It's very poignant and very deep. How easy or difficult a line was that for you to tread? I remember early on, because I adapted the screenplay from a book by Rene Carlino. And I remember getting notes on the script early on that were, and also my director's cut even, that were like, well, what is this movie? Is it a comedy or is it a drama?

Or it's like the first part of the movie is funny, but then the last part of the movie is really sad. And that was very intentional for me because it was A, what I responded to about the book, that there was some, that you could have moments where you're laughing and then all of a sudden you're crying and then you're laughing and crying at the same time. And I think that's much like life.

But I also was aware of kind of trying to draw the audience in with lightness and humor and almost the sort of romantic comedy that we're used to. And then what I loved about the book, and I tried to do in the movie, is that despite how young the main characters are and how new this romance is, it's actually really deep and touches on things that are just more timeless, more, I don't want to say heavy, but like just something a lot more grounded than just, you know, a rom-com. Yes. Well, it strikes me that it's about lives lived and unlived without giving too much away. So there's this real resonance to it. I think you do a beautiful job of that balance. But

I understand that at one point, your script supervisor said to you that you had to stop qualifying your ideas. Please tell us that story. I'm so interested in it. Yes, and thank you for specifying. Qualifying was a good way to put it because I sort of reduced it to stop apologizing. But actually, she did say stop apologizing, but I think what she meant was stop qualifying. She didn't mean that I was saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. She meant that I was explaining. Every time I would say, this is what I need for my vision or this is what I need on set, I explained and I explained and I explained,

almost as if I was asking permission. And I think ultimately she was telling me to stop being so accommodating. At a certain point, you have to put your foot down and say, well, I need a white teacup and I'm gonna wait for the white teacup until it gets here. Yes. Stepping into your power. And I wonder, because female directors are still comparatively rare, which seems a ludicrous thing to say in 2025. But how much of that do you think

is to do with this social conditioning that a certain kind of cis woman has, which is to ask for permission and to people please. Yeah, I mean, it definitely comes from being an actress. As an actress, you are, it's so ingrained in me to want to make sure that I'm likeable. Like, I don't want to rub people the wrong way. Part of being an actress is you have to get cast in any given part, and that means that the people making that decision have to like you. And so I think I wasn't even aware of, oh, now I have to be front footed about everything. I have to be thinking 10 steps ahead of everyone else, anticipating the things that I'm going to need. And if for whatever reason somebody thinks that I'm

being too aggressive or too assertive, it doesn't matter. Who cares? That's so interesting that you say that given that I started off this introduction talking about one of my favorite movies of all time, which is 10 Things I Hate About You, and the role of Kat, who is someone who is angsty and intelligent and unapologetically not part of the in-crowd at high school. And it's difficult to remember now, but that was so radical at the time. And I wonder how much that role gave you

a sort of liberating ability to be someone more like Kat. Right, I mean, it was really rare for the time. And I remember specifically being an auditioning actress at 17. And there was a trend in rom-coms and just teen romances. And it was like one movie after another, I was not getting the part. And I would go to commercial auditions, and they would tell me to be more bubbly and more effervescent

and not so serious and smile more and be sexier and you're constantly being judged like any auditioning actor. But when I read the part of Kat, I was, I was like, oh my God, this is so refreshing because she is so assertive. Now I will say, I think it was almost aspirational for me. I don't think I would, I stepped into that role gratefully and gleefully because I was like, oh, I get to be like assertive cat 2.0. And I didn't necessarily do that in my own life. Even later in life. And how old were you at the time that you got cat? 17.

Okay. So yes, it was very kind of potent time to have that experience. And I didn't even see examples of characters like that, women like that, young women like that, that much,, young women like that, that much, particularly in high school movies. Yeah. Let's get on to your failures, because I think the first one speaks to a lot of what we've been talking about, which is not keeping in touch with your closest friends. Yes. And the reason I think it pertains to what we've been talking about is because

you started working very young. So take us back to you grew up in New York and you wrote a letter to a theatre director, is that right? I did. My parents, my mom's an artist and my parents were really good friends with a production designer and the founder of this very fringe theatre company that would do shows in downtown Manhattan. And they would hang out and have dinners together. And I remember being very outgoing and loving like, you know, school plays and performances. And I always played dress-up.

And growing up in New York City, we didn't have a backyard. So my backyard was my imagination. And I would mimic what I saw on TV. And they said they had a part for a kid. And I guess, yeah, I had the chutzpah to be like, I wrote a letter. I said all the characters that I had made up and I could bring the costume. I don't know, something really ridiculously precocious. But they gave me a part in my first play with them that was not speaking.

I think I was like napping on the floor the whole time and then slowly the roles got bigger and bigger and then I was part of the company and they helped me find an agent and then I started auditioning. And is that partly why you struggle to keep in touch with close friends because you work so much of the time? Now I think it's actually being a parent, probably. And all of my friends have moved out of New York City and most of them have their own families and so we just all get busy. But I think it's also technology. Like you think that you're keeping in touch with your friends over when you think about them and you text message, but it's not really

the same as like sitting down and having a coffee or having somebody over, you think about them and you text message, but it's not really the same as like sitting down and having a coffee or having somebody over, or going on vacation. I used to go on vacation with my girlfriends, but now we're lucky if we can plan a coffee. I'm trying to make more of an effort now. And I will say that the text messaging thing, oh, voice memos are really nice.

I'm a big fan of sending a voice memo as though it's like a voicemail, but for some reason we listen to the voice memo more. That feels closer. And just letting them know that I'm thinking about them. But I guess I lament that I feel like I'm a terrible friend because even though I love my friends and I care about them,

and I do wanna keep in touch with them, time will pass. And then when we do reunite, I'm like something amazing or tragic, whatever might have happened in their life. And I'm like, what? I didn't know about this, why didn't you tell me? Yeah, so I think you have to really make a conscious effort

to ask the questions and check in on your friends. Do you think they think you're a bad friend? No, no, I mean, I hope not. No, no, I think that everybody understands at this point in life that it's hard, you know, we're just off in different directions and everybody's busy. And the best thing about the thing that I've learned from having to think about this for your podcast

is the really, really deep closest friends that have been around the longest. It's like riding a bicycle. The minute you do catch up with them, whether it's in person or over the phone, everything falls back into place and it's like you haven't missed a beat. I totally agree. I actually wrote a book about friendship. And so this is something that completely fascinates me. And I think the most important metric of friendship is that generosity of spirit so that you don't feel guilty if life is too busy to constantly be in touch. The idea that when you do see

each other, you can pick up where you left off is so generous. Yes, that is brilliant. And that is so true because I think of my handful, I can count them less than one hand, closest friends, they never put that pressure on me of like, or the holding a grudge or resentment about, oh, well, you didn't call me, you know, on my dog's birthday, or you didn't, you know, whatever it is, or like, it's just, we're not holding on to that. Yeah. How has fame affected your approach to friendship? That is a relationship that I've been navigating for quite some time. So I would say that I don't stress about it and I don't think about it as much now in terms of being open to friendships

and new friendships. I think in my 20s I probably was a little bit more guarded. I'm not sure. I think I have a good sense. I just have an innate sense of like, I can smell if something's off. But other than that, I don't really think about it. Like I'm open to being friends with you if we are interested in the same things and we have a good vibe going. Because I was very interested by the thing that I mentioned in the introduction about that decision to study English at Columbia, when you could have very easily sort of been back to back in lead movies. What was important for you about that decision at that stage? There was so much. A, I just kind of always knew that I was going to go to college or I wanted to go to college

and I wanted to have that experience. I think now in retrospect, I look back on college and I think, oh, I was definitely like running in the other direction from fame. Or there was something about this change in my life that made me uncomfortable and school was something that I could control. I could go to university and focus on other things. And it would help me make sense of this transitional time in my life. And I wasn't thinking strategically necessarily about my career.

Like, I'm sure I had agents and managers, whatever, telling me like, what, you want to go to college? And like my freshman year of college, I think Save the Last Dance maybe came out or I was doing promotion for something. And that was the interviews were always about, oh, she's a freshman in college. And so then I was like, well, I have to finish. I can't this cheap if I like brag that I've started college, but I don't actually graduate. I look back on that experience. And I was in a bit of a fishbowl, but I was totally pretending that I wasn't, which is, I guess, healthy. Yeah, definitely given a state of functional denial.

Yeah, functional denial, exactly. What was the discomfort that you mentioned there, the fact that you wanted to make a move away from fame? Well, no, it's just a radical shift in anyone's life to be on in people's television sets and in a movie have a recognizable face. I mean, it comes in all different forms, but I'll say like a benign form is that you walk down the street and somebody does a double take and they think that like, oh, do I know you from somewhere?

So it's just this, it's like a subtle, subtle but radical shift in someone's life. And as a performer, it's what you want, but at the, because it means that people are wanting to watch what you do or they're it means that people are wanting to watch what you do or they're interested in the stories that you tell, but especially as a teenager, you know, 17, 18, 19 years old, it's crazy. I mean, it's crazy. And so I think there was a part of me that knew,

oh, you know, you're doing all these interviews talking about yourself. And, you know, I just knew that it was like, you can't become too obsessed with yourself. You have to go and do other things. And so college was another thing. Yeah, it must have been so difficult as a teenager. I mean, just imagining myself at that age, when I was basically watching your movies, that would have been a very difficult thing to cope with.

I mean, and I think there was a lot that was exciting about it too. But yeah, and I'm sure I flailed. Like I had, I probably seem like I'm really put together, but I had a lot of, I had a lot of like, I wasn't struggling. I just was like along for this ride that was exhilarating and then also kind of scary and so was figuring out how to deal with it all through my 20s really. Did you have good friends then to help you through? I mean perhaps some of your friends were people that you acted with.

You know I keep in touch with actors that I work with much more now than I did then. It always felt like we would go to set and have this really intense connection, and we'd be working together to finish the movie, and then the movie's finished, and we all go home, and that's pretty much it at that time. My friendships, I latched, some of my best friends I made in college, and I latched onto them as like, you're with me regardless. Are they still your friends now? Yes.

Great. You see you're a great friend. In fact, I called one of my dearest bestest bestest friends and we lose touch all the time but we catch up when we can. I met in college. On spring break, we went on vacation together. And now I tell, I had called her, I left her a voice memo the other night because I was like, do you know that I tell the story to my middle son every night before he goes to bed, the story

of like so and so and the broken arm. And it was something that happened on this vacation. And I obviously water it down for kids, but it was just to let her know that I was thinking about her. That's beautiful. What you tell the story every night. He just becomes. He asked for it. Yes. I say you were talking about college there. And I referred to this in the introduction that you got your role in the Jason Bourne movies when you were still at college. Yes. Tell us the story of how you found out you've got that role. It was so ridiculous. I look back on it now. I can visualize it. I was in my

tiny little freshman year dorm room, was sent the sides because they wouldn't release the script for privacy reasons. What's the sides? Sides is like just the scene that you're in. Usually when you audition for something, they send you sides. So you're just reading the scene that you're in or one of the scenes that they want you to read, but you can't read the whole script. So they sent me the sides.

And the whole package was like, oh, Matt Damon's gonna be in it and Doug Lyman is directing it. It's based on this book series, Universal Studios. And I was like, yeah, that's cool. But I have final exams coming up. Like, how am I going to fly to the Czech Republic? And luckily, somebody talked to me. Many people talked to me out of that.

And I got on a plane and went to Prague and filmed the scene. It was really like one or two scenes that I was in where my and then my character was supposed to be thrown up against the wall. And that was it. That was going to be thrown up against the wall and That was it that was going to be the end of her fate in the franchise and then many months later when they were Finishing editing the film they were like we need you to come in and record ADR which is voice recording and the voice recording was

breathing like heavy breathing so that They could show that might when they recut the film they could show that my, when they recut the film, they could show that my character was still alive. And then she survived and I got to go on and make three more movies. What was that experience like? Because quite a change in pace for you in terms of the sort of acting that you were doing. Yeah, I mean, it was remarkable. It was like amazing. I feel so lucky to be a part of that franchise because it was on the forefront of changing the way action movies looked.

Yes. The female characters in those movies got to do a whole lot more. And amazing directors like Doug Liman, who I keep in touch with, got the rights to the book, started the franchise, designed the look of the first film, cast Matt Damon, and then Paul Greengrass in the next three movies

that I got to do with them. And I learned so much from them. I mean, I learned so much. Paul Greengrass is one of the loveliest, kindest human beings, and also carrying the stress of what became a giant action franchise. And every movie that they ended up making after that it's like the budgets got bigger and the

the ways that they had to impress the audiences got bigger and bigger and the entourages got bigger and he he was like culled on to his visionariness as a director and the way and he could pivot and be spontaneous even though they were spending all this money and time and prep on action sequences. And through all of that, I took away from the experience that he was like managing all that but still really, really kind and decent to every single person that worked on those films. Beautiful. And I wish I could go back in time and watch The Bourne Identity again for the first time

because you're so right, it completely revolutionized that kind of movie. It did, it did. The handheld camera work, the casting of Franco Patente and the way that they filmed in Europe and making it look like a gritty almost European or indie film and yet, yeah, it was really groundbreaking at the time. And Matt Damon was a huge star, but he wasn't considered an action hero. He was the writer, the cerebral, the, you know, yeah. Yeah. Well, your second failure is to do with a different film,

equally iconic, Save the Last Dance. Yes. And your second failure, which actually broke my heart to read it, is that you quit dance lessons after that movie. Yeah, I mean, not consciously, but I look back on in the 20 years since or whatever 25 years since we made that movie, I haven't been to a single formal dance class. Now, I absolutely love to dance and that has not gone away and that will never go away.

And I dance all the time in my house in my living room, you know, I'll even dance on the sidewalk. I don't care. Like I walk, in my living room. You know, I'll even dance on the sidewalk. I don't care. Like, I walk down to New York City Street with my headphones on, and I will catch myself, like, shimmying a little bit, and then I have to go, oh, my God, I'm in public. You can't do that. So my love of dance has not gone away. But I haven't been to a formal class at all.

There was a period of time during the pandemic where I would do, do like virtual dance classes. There were studios online that would post, there were great teachers that would post their own like dance class. And I would do that in the privacy of my own home. And it's because, you know, am I lazy? Maybe, but it's also the self-consciousness

of like dancing in front of, I've done aqua zumba, which is like zumba inside a pool so nobody can see what your body is doing. Yes. No, but like, I guess it's just being, yeah, being self-conscious, which is such a shame. I should get over that. And I will, I will. I've had friends who've wanted me to go to like, you know, whatever dance classes that are at their gym or something and eventually I'll drag myself

to do it. And is the self-consciousness to do with, say, The Last Dance and having seen yourself on screen or what the audition scene then became in terms of it becoming a meme and being reinvented by TikTok. Right. Was that all part of it? I mean, dancers are a judgmental group. They can be. They're also a very supportive group. Yeah, it sounds stupid when I say it out loud now because like, who cares?

But I think that if I went to like a serious, whether it's ballet or hip hop kind of dance class, I would feel like I was being judged based on that movie. And, like, I'm supposed to be a professional dancer. But yeah, fuck it, I'll just... I'm gonna put my leggings on and... find a class. I just have to find the right class. The one that would be, like, really fun for me.

You could get a private dance class. I could? Wow. I can't believe I never thought of that. I could. You could get someone to come to your work. Well, I had, I did a TV show, a British TV show actually, where there was one scene where we had to dance. It was a tango and I got to do tango lessons and I fucking loved it so much that I definitely need to recreate that kind of joy in my life. Talk to me about your love of dance and how early that started and what it represents for you. Yeah, I mean, I started taking modern dance classes in elementary school and there was a teacher, Ellen Robbins, who taught children's dance classes at Dance Theatre Workshop in New York.

And Claire Danes actually, I think, also took those classes. We would have our like formal, it wasn't loosey goosey modern dance, it was like Martha Graham, very structured and rooted in ballet. But the last half hour of the class, somebody got to pick a record and she played records. And we were allowed to improvise. And I'm sure it looked ridiculous and silly, but it always gave me that love of like the, rather than just the repetition and the structure and getting the steps right, this was like moving your body from the inside out. Pretty cute.

Do you think you're a perfectionist? I can be. Yeah, totally. I can be. Because that kind of improvisation is very good for people who struggle with perfectionism. Yeah, and also getting rid of self-consciousness, although I was a child and a teenager then, so I think I was, you know, not as self-conscious as I would be now as an adult. You also dance in 10 Things I Hate About You. Yes, that's what got me the job in Save the Last Dance. I'm not joking.

I was told by the director of Save the Last Dance, Thomas Carter, that he saw that scene in 10 Things I Hate About You. And that's why he thought, he thought we can cast any white girl to do the ballet, but we need somebody who also has rhythm in a different way. And because he saw that, he thought he had confidence in me in the other part of it.

Tell us about Safe at Our Stance and what making that movie was like aside from the reception of it, which is a hugely popular movie. And we'll come on to the meme bit later, because I actually rewatched the audition scene in advance of this recording and you were bloody brilliant. Thank you. You really were and it really upsets me. But people make fun of it too, don't they? That's okay. But people make fun of it and they clip it out of context. Actually, if you watch the whole thing and the way that it's filmed is obviously of its time. So the way that it's

cut and everything, it looks slightly jarring to the modern eye, but you do a terrific job. Oh, thank you. You do. That experience, I was a perfectionist. I was very hard on myself in terms of I was determined to do as much of the dancing as I could. And I also, it was a wonderful opportunity. One of the reasons I wanted to do the movie was to do the formal dance training. But you know, it's a tough dance, dancers are really, and choreographers are really tough. I mean, if you look at any dance movie throughout history, Fosse for instance, comes to mind, you'll never be good enough. Yeah. And did you feel like that during the course of the movie?

Yes. Okay. So it wasn't a happy experience filming that? It was hard. It was hard. But then the movie came out and everybody loved it and that was really delightful too and that people are still talking about it. It was great. Yeah. How do you feel now looking back as a mother of three, a director in your own right, looking back at those movies that you made as a teenager? Well, I mean, I don't, I don't really spend that much time, to be honest. I celebrate it a lot more now.

I think I cringed many years ago. Now I'm just like, this is pretty awesome. People are talking about and thinking about a movie or movies that you've done decades later. And I focus on the good in it. That means that people, as a performer, you want people to care about the stories that you tell. And even if sometimes they're a little bit dated,

some part of what you did resonates with people many, many years later, and that's a gift. And I'm not oblivious to the fact that, somebody in my family sent a text chain that referenced the break dancer who the Olympic break dancer who I think did the save last dance. Rae Gunn. Or somebody said on Twitter like she's it's like me on steroids and save last dance. And

I was like, I think I'm being made fun of, but I'm not going to spend too much time dwelling on that. I'm not going to let that rob me of the joy of the career that I've had. Mm. What would you say to your teenage self, the one that was filming Safe at Our Stance and having a challenging time, what would you say to her now? I mean, I would say enjoy it. Well, it's hard to say that because it's not a bad thing that I was somewhat of a perfectionist and that there's certainly, obviously there's like a ton of pressure in a big studio movie like that. They had high hopes for the movie and that's going to get focused in on what the actors and the dancers are doing. So it would be idiotic to think that I wouldn't feel some of that pressure. But I guess I would just be kinder to myself about it, you

know, like do the best you can and enjoy it. Do you ever get sick when people keep talking about those movies you made 20 plus years ago? I, you know, before I made Wish You Were Here, I didn't get sick of it, but I felt like I was not living up to those expectations. And then I got to direct, directing a movie has been like a career long goal of mine or at least in the last 10 or 15 years. So when I finally got to direct my own movie, I was like, okay, now I've now I fucking did that. I love to hear that. You cast Jennifer Grey as the mother in which she was here. Yeah. I wonder if you've spoken to her about being in an iconic dance movie ever. She talks about it. Yeah. Yeah. I Yeah. She talks about dirty dancing and she also won

the mirror ball trophy on Dancing with the Stars by the way. Oh, because we don't get that in the UK. You have strictly come dancing. That's right. Well, Dancing with the Stars is my Monday night football, and I am obsessed with it. Her winning the mirror ball trophy on it with one of my favorite choreographers, Derek Hough, is if not as, if not more remarkable to me or more like jaw dropping than dirty dancing or equally

fine. Did we talk about that? You know, she talks very openly about her career and all the craziness and ups and downs that come with it. I think when we were filming though, I was actually so much more focused on getting my own movie made that I didn't have time to sit. And I picked her brain about Dancing with the Stars. And she said, it'll consume your life, but somehow when you go on that ballroom floor, like everything just clicks into place. And her kind of perfectionist dancer brain,

like thrived in that environment. So the obvious question is, would you ever do Dancing with the Stars? We've totally talked about it and I if I could convince them to film on the East Coast like Miami do a season in Miami or New York do it in a heartbeat but I cannot uproot my family or be away from my family for like six months in Los Angeles and if I'm gonna do it I'm in it to win it. So I'm gonna be there for six months. There's that perfectionist alpha right there. Yeah, exactly, no.

No, I just, I love it, I love it. It's also maybe like the star that you don't wanna get to, you don't get too close to your icons, like. Yes. Yeah, I totally get that. But it would be such good therapy for you. Oh, I know. I know, I know.

Proper immersion therapy. Yeah. No, it would be so much fun. It would be really great. I mean, it's a huge operation. I have no expectations that they're ever going to do anything outside of LA. But yeah, I can I can always dream. Well, I for one would love to see you dance again. Oh my god. But then I think about these memes on TikTok or whatever. And I'm like, oh my god, they're all going to laugh at you. No, they're not laughing at you. This is what I want because I don't imagine you have TikTok. I don't know if I'm overstepping. No, no, I don't. I had to do a little, I dabbled a little bit for promoting Wish You Were Here

because the youngins convinced me to do that. But other than that, I don't. Because I don't know whether you've ever seen one of these TikTok videos with the audition scene from Safe of Last Dance, but they are not making fun of you. It's actually far more affectionate than I imagine your worst self would imagine. I promise you. Before we move on to your final failure, I say your final failure, but you actually were generous enough to give me four.

I think I sent more than that too too because I could not stop overthinking it. But yeah. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I wanted to ask whether you felt particularly protective of your young stars in Wish You Were Here because of what you've been through. I did.

Yeah. I mean, they didn't really need my protection. I think Isabel Fuhrman, who's the lead in Wish You Were Here, I am a star, I sometimes would look at her and I'd be like, I cannot believe you are 27 years old or 28 years old. She is so wise beyond her years and has been through it. Like she started out as a child actor and I think there's something about that experience that can either break you or if you have a great, you know, mom like she does or great support system and that helps you like keep your head on your shoulders, you come out of it wise beyond

your years and she definitely is that, you know, wise and a good person and humble too. Did I give them any advice? No, but I was, but I was protective of them. Like for instance, it's a love story and I don't have a sex scene in it because I'm not, I hate watching those scenes, I hate filming them and I wasn't going to put my actors through that. And they actually almost were like, can I take my shirt off? And I'm like, no, you can't. You say you hate filming them. Has filming them got any easier during the span of your career? Sort of. I mean, you know, now we have intimacy coordinators. Depending on the person, that can be helpful, but also sometimes it can just shine a flashlight

on how uncomfortable these scenes are. But I'm also... Yeah, no, and I think that there's definitely a sensitivity now, where the things that I was asked to do in my 20s, not asked to do anymore, although maybe that has to do with my age. I don't know. I don't think so. Can I ask what kind of things you were has to do anymore. Although maybe that has to do with my age. I don't think so. Can I ask what kind of things you were asked to do in your 20s that you felt uncomfortable with? Yes, I won't name names, but I was because also I don't know what it was about me that

I was maybe I think it had something to do with growing up in New York City. I was so easy. I was so good at dodging and deflecting those uncomfortable situations. Somebody would say something super rude and uncomfortable or inappropriate to me and I'd be like, haha, that's cool, bye. There was an indie movie that I did that I'm not going to name but it was, you know, there was a scene where I was supposed to be waking up and getting out of bed and the director in my trailer was like, would you show your ass? I think I was 20 or 19 years old. And I was like, no, I'm not really into that.

Cool, see you later. And was able to get out of the situation, you know. Wow, well done. I sometimes think that the older I get, the more I know myself, but in some ways I'm less confident than I was when I was younger. Sometimes, yeah.

I suppose because maybe you're less aware of consequence when you're younger. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well done 20 year old Julia Stiles. Thank you. 20 year old Julia Stiles gets us onto your third failure, which is hating on your body in your 20s. Thank you for picking this one. Why did you pick it? I'm actually as I as I wrote that to you, I was like, I'm sure I'm not the first person

to say this. And I also tried to reframe it as a positive thing of like taking better care of my body. Where do I start? You know, it's partially just, okay, so I remember on the set of Mona Lisa Smile, Julia Roberts was an amazing example for us and she was so maternal with all the young women on that set and coming from a lot of experience of being not just a woman but also a woman where your, what your appearance is focused on so heavily. And she said to us at one point, you're gonna look back on these photos of you in your twenties and be like, I was beautiful.

What was wrong with, why was I, why didn't I see that? And she was totally right. But I think also my relationship with my body and food and diet and exercise and my appearance radically changed. A, when I had kids, being pregnant, nourishing a baby, growing a baby, all that stuff. And then also directing a movie, which is similar to having a baby in some ways, I mean, creatively, spiritually, whatever. I went from just like in my 20s and early 30s,

being an actress, there's so much focus on your appearance and are you gonna fit into certain clothes? And I'm not the first person to say this, you know, my whole, even as sort of grounded as I was and coming from a mother who never emphasized those things, food and all that stuff was so stressful. It was always, I just like couldn't help but have a disordered relationship with it all.

And then I, and also just about like, I'm not talking about an eating disorder, I'm just saying like a restrictive, like regimented stressful, everything is stressful. And always worried that it's gonna to be out of my control, like, what if I gain weight, what about this? And then I, when I decided I wanted to have kids, started looking at things differently of like,

oh, well, I need this machine to work. So I need to fuel my body and I need to nourish it, and I need to fuel this baby and nourish it. And everything just fell into place where it was just like I relaxed. I naturally wanted to eat the things that were going to make me feel better, you know, and help me grow. And it all just became easier. And then having a baby and then having three babies now, I'm like, Whoa, my body can do magical, wonderful, amazing things.

And when I relaxed and I started to trust it more, everything fell into place and it's doing totally what it's supposed to do. And then with directing, it was like, I'm not focused inward so much. I'm not focused on every little detail of my appearance. I'm focused outward on the task at hand. So I don't have time to think about all the imperfections.

I actually need to fuel my body so that I can get through the 15-hour workday so that my brain can be focused. That also was like, that was the first time that I was on a film set. This tactile experience of being in the environment, of seeing cameras everywhere and seeing grips and electrics and hair and makeup and the costume department. I was on a film set and I wasn't stressed about the snack table.

I find that so moving how you just put it. Thank you. Because although you say, I'm not the first person to speak about this, actually, it's very rare that someone comes on this podcast and is brave enough to say those things, which and I'm not a Hollywood superstar, but I relate to every single word. And I think for people, women who didn't live through the 90s, it's difficult to understand how much pressure was put on any woman. But I can't imagine how magnified that was being in the public eye, especially at a time when you were famous and your body was going through changes. Oh my God. I mean, yes. Thank you for saying that too. Because as I'm sitting here saying

it, I was listening to your Celeste Barber interview and I was talking back to the speaker like this is what I'm going to say. And I am, there's a part of me that in talking about this is like a little bit scared because somebody is going to pull it off. I pull it out of context and put it on Twitter and that'll be clickbait that like, you know, Julia Stiles struggles with body issues. Well, no, every woman struggles with them, you know, and it's such a waste of fucking time. Yeah. When you were struggling with them, there's so much I want to ask you about this, because I recently have been thinking about weight loss jabs as lifestyle choice, rather

than when people actually need to be on a Zempical Manjaro for health reasons because they're obese or pre-diabetic and ultimately whilst I also am fully behind people choosing what they want to do with their own bodies, it's made me look internally at how I have this constant narrative still on spooling in my head, which I'm aware of now, which I wasn't aware of in the nineties, I just thought it was me, which is you should be thinner still. And I, like you, I've never had an eating disorder. And I salute people who live with them because it's such a difficult thing to, I imagine, to live with. But I definitely have disordered thoughts about eating.

And it all comes from this legacy of a woman having to be a certain size. Yeah, yeah. That was the aesthetic back then. Hasn't really changed that much. But yeah, again, I wanted to specify it's like not an eating disorder. It's just there's stress around it, around what your body looks like and trying to mold your body into a certain size. For me as an actress, it was, it was, do we fit in?

Because we go and promote on a red carpet and we have to wear sample sizes from fashion designers. And so if you don't, so it was always like, are we going to fit into the sample size? Um, and now I don't even have to really think about it because I'm not thinking about it. Yeah. Were you made to feel like a failure for not fitting into a sample size at some point? I, I'm sure that I was, but I'm not going to get specific about it because I've moved on. Like, again, I just found that it was like such a... Being on the set of Wish You Were Here, again, the stress around the snack table, I was like, cool, I have the afternoon to get through and I'm losing energy,

I'm going to have some M&Ms and I don't care. And my body didn't care. Like it was all, it's all fine. Or I need this egg sandwich in the morning because I need my brain to focus and I need energy. And I point that out specifically because it was being on a film set, which I thought like maybe kinetically or energetically my body would go like, oh, here we are again, there's those cameras, but it didn't. Because I was focused outward and I had a task to do that was bringing me a lot of joy and a lot of satisfaction. That was more important. If anyone right now is listening to this and they are struggling with some of the things that you struggled with and to a certain extent I struggled with. I wonder what advice you would give them.

Oh, that's hard because it comes in all different forms, right? I mean, I don't think that I'm any sort of expert. But I guess the reason that I brought it up as a, you know, one of my failures, is what I've learned is to be kinder in terms of the way I think about my body and look at my body, to be kinder to myself, but also trust your body. Like that was the thing that clicked with me is that when I got pregnant, had children, even going into labor, trusting my body that it would know what to do, like just changed everything on a cellular level. And same thing with wish you were here directing a movie. I would be running on fumes, like no sleep, having just had a five-month-old baby and, you know, I didn't have time to think about, am I going to get back in shape to fit into those sample sizes?

Do you think you care less what other people think of you? Yes and no. I think that I, I guess I do. I have my moments though. I think it's like socially maybe with I worry I'm very much like a let's take care of everybody and make sure that everybody's happy in the room. So if I ever like say something that maybe was misconstrued to somebody and I maybe hurt their feelings or maybe they thought I was in a bad mood or maybe I don't know I'm hypersensitive to those kinds of things and I have to keep that in check and go like, it's okay, you're not responsible for all of it. And, but on the other hand, I...

In terms of like, being an actress in fame, I'm so used to the, like, people saying shit about you, kind of thing that I just don't, I don't think about it. Because that's gonna rob me of the everyday joy in life. Yeah. Your fourth failure and your final failure pertains to this idea of fame and people telling you what they think. And it's not telling so and so I am a fan. So you have, is that because you haven't gone out to people and said I'm a fan? No, I used to, I used to in situations where I might run into somebody that I, whose work

I really liked or who I fangirled over, I wouldn't say anything because it's like, like those I laugh at this and I'm a little self-conscious because it's like not the most relatable experience. But you know, when you go and you're at a party or red carpet promoting something and you see somebody that you've seen on TV, there used to be a part of me that was like, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool. And then I let go of all that.

And recently I've discovered like everybody who's a performer wants to know that people are listening to their music or watching their movies or care at all, reading their book book like caring at all about what they have to say. So I'm totally unselfconsciously ready to say, oh, I read your book. Oh, I saw this show that you were on. Oh my God, that was really good. Or like I listen to your music all the time. This is amazing. Who was the last person you did that to? Okay, this is, God, I hate myself right now. The biggest name dropiness I could do.

But it happened and it's awesome. I went to a party, Amir Kwestlove hosts these amazing game night parties. You know, and it's sparkly. But Taylor Swift walked in the room and it was like all the air. It's like the whole, you could just feel it. She has that presence, I mean, obviously. And I was like, look away, look away, look away, look away, and wasn't gonna say anything, obviously.

And then as I was leaving, because there was a little part of me that was like, you have to go home now, go hide in the bathroom, go home. You're not, you don't deserve to be here. A comedian stopped me and he was like, wait, Taylor wants to say hi. And I was like, what? And pulled me over. And he kind of orchestrated the whole thing, but he was like, she really likes your work.

And we shook hands and I don't, I blacked out. I don't remember actually really likes your work. And we shook hands and I blacked out. I don't remember actually what happened after that, but she said something very nice to me. And we were like, then just gonna go off and have, keep the conversation going and make small talk. And I dissociated for a second, but of course, oh, I told her that I was a huge fan of her. I finally worked up the courage to be like,

you're amazing, this is crazy. And she looked like she genuinely appreciated it. So, you know. Yeah, I know, it's so stupid. I can't even say, I'm saying it out loud and I'm like, what is your life? But yeah. Even somebody like Taylor Swift,

who is the biggest star on the planet, is, seems humble enough or just positive enough to be like, yeah, I'm glad that bazillions of people like to listen to my music. They don't take it for granted. And you're thoughtful enough to say so. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. She probably knows it already. No, you definitely should have said something. 100%. As I am about to say that I am a huge fan of your studio styles. Oh, thank you. And I wanted to play it cool.

I don't think I did, but I want to thank you for every single one of your performances that I've watched on screen. There are some stinkers in there. Well, I haven't seen them if there are. Okay. But I appreciate it. I appreciate it too. Thank you so, so much for coming on How to Fail.

It was a pleasure. Really, really such a wonderful podcast and it really got me thinking. When I had to sit down and think about what failures I've learned from, that's a very good life exercise. Thank you. Okay. You're going to stay on to do Failing With Friends. Thank you so much.

Yes. Please do follow How To Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.