Julia Stiles details “10 Things I Hate About You ”cast reunion in honor of Heath Ledger on “DWTS:” ‘A group conversation’

Emlyn TravisWed, October 21, 2026 at 2:49 PM UTC

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The cast of ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ on ‘DWTS’Credit: Disney/Ser BaffoKey Points -

Julia Stiles is opening up about her Dancing With the Stars “Dedication Night” performance.

The actress dedicated her contemporary dance to her late 10 Things I Hate About You costar, Heath Ledger.

She was joined after the performance by costars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gabrielle Union, and more.

Dancing With the Stars competitor Julia Stiles is peeling back the curtain on how they pulled off that emotional 10 Things I Hate About You cast reunion in honor of their late castmate, Heath Ledger.

The actress, who starred as Kat Stratford in the 1999 rom-com, commemorated “Dedication Night” by performing contemporary dance to the tune of Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” in honor of Ledger, who died at 28 in 2008. It is the same song that Ledger’s character Patrick famously sings to win Kat over in the film.

At the end of her performance, Stiles and her pro partner, Ezra Sosa, were joined onstage by her 10 Things castmates Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gabrielle Union, Larisa Oleynik, Andrew Keegan, and Susan May Pratt. Together, they held hands and gazed upon an image of Ledger depicted on the large screen in front of them.

The cast of ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ on ‘DWTS’Credit: Disney/Ser Baffo

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Stiles explained that it was important she didn’t honor Ledger alone. “It was a group conversation with the producers,” she explained. “When we talked about dedicating it to Heath, we needed to find somebody to sort of represent the movie or to join us on stage.”

Stiles continued, “And I was like, ‘Well, it has to be the whole cast. It can’t just be one person, because we were a pack.’”

The Save the Last Dance star told EW’s sister site PEOPLE that she felt a sense of “responsibility” when dedicating the dance to Ledger, making sure to include a few of his own dance moves from the film. “I think we both felt a responsibility to be respectful, to honor him in a way that felt authentic and sincere,” she said at the time. “And we wanted to handle it delicately.”

She continued, “Ezra had this great idea to have this sort of more somber, like, acoustic, beginning. And then I was like, ‘But also we need to have the big brass moment because his energy in that scene was really captivating.’ And so it was a nice combination in terms of hitting all the notes.”

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The 45-year-old added that the performance really impressed upon her just how young and “open-hearted” they had been when they filmed the drama more than two decades ago.

“I mean, that’s even what we were trying to express in the dance,” she said. “That it was like we were so innocent and not guarded or jaded yet.”

Stiles added that Ledger served as the leader of the pack on set, adding, “He was the most playful one who just made everybody feel like, ‘Here we are pouring our hearts into this movie.’”

Based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, 10 Things I Hate About You saw high schooler Cameron (Gordon-Levitt) enlist bad boy Patrick (Ledger) to date Kat (Stiles) so that he could date her younger sister, Bianca (Oleynik). The film also starred Union, Keegan, Pratt, David Krumholtz, and more.

Stiles and Sosa earned 36 points for their performance. In the end, all contestants were safe into the next week, which will be “Horror Movie Night.”

on Entertainment Weekly

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”