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Julia O'Hara Stiles (born March 28, 1981) is an American stage and screen actress. Beginning her theatre career in juvenile parts she has graduated to plays by authors as diverse as William Shakespeare and David Mamet, while her film career has been both a commerical and critical success, ranging from teen romantic comedies such as 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) to dark art house pictures such as The Business of Strangers (2001). Stiles's admirers compare her to Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, and Diane Lane.

Youth and Education
Stiles was born in New York City, the eldest of the three children (two daughters and a son) of John O'Hara, a teacher and businessman, and Judith Stiles, a potter. She attended a Quaker school in Manhattan and is (as of 2005) an English major at Columbia University in New York City, though she has several times interuppted her studies to puruse her film career.

Stage Career
Stiles was an actress from age eleven, performing with New York's La MaMa Theatre Company, landing work by boldly submitting to the company photographs of herself in costume and asking she be kept in mind for juvenile parts. She graduated to adult roles and, in the summer of 2002, appeared in the lead role Shakespeare in the Park's production of Twelfth Night with Jimmy Smits. Reviewing the production, Ben Brantley of The New York Times saluted Stiles as "the thinking teenagers' movie goddess" who put him in mind of a "young Jane Fonda". In the spring of 2004, she made her London stage debut opposite Aaron Eckhart in a revival of David Mamet's play Oleanna at the Garrick Theatre.

Film career
Stiles's first film was a non-speaking part in I Love You, I Love You Not (1996) with Claire Danes and Jude Law. She also had small roles as Harrison Ford's daughter in Alan J. Pakula's The Devil's Own (1997) and in M. Night Shyamalan's Wide Awake. Stiles's first lead was in Wicked (1998, playing a teenage girl who murders her mother so she can have her father all to herself. Joe Balthai wrote she was "the darling of the 1998 Sundance Film Festival" and Internet movie maven Harry Knowles said she was the "discovery of the fest", but the film was not commercially released in the U.S. and went direct-to-video.

The role that made her a star was playing Kat Stratford opposite Heath Ledger in Gil Junger's 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew set in a Seattle high school in the first script by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kristen Smith. She won an MTV Movie Award for Breakthrough Female Performance for the role and the Chicago Film Critics voted her the most promising new actress of the year. Foreign critics applauded her work as well. Adina Hoffman praised her as "a young, serious looking Diane Lane" and Martin Hoyle said Stiles played Kat "with bloody-minded independent charm from the beginning with hints of wistfulness beneath the determination."

She subsequently did two more Shakespearean adaptations, playing the Desdemona role opposite Mekhi Pfifer in the title role in Tim Blake Nelson's O (2001), Othello in high school; and Ophelia in Michael Almerayda's Hamlet (2000, with Ethan Hawke in the lead.  Neither was a great success, O being subject to many delays and a change of distributors, Hamlet being an art house film shot on a shoestring budget.

Her next commercial success was in Save the Last Dance (2001), as an aspiring ballerina forced to leave her small town in downstate Illinois when her mother is killed to live with her struggling musician father in Chicago. At her new, nearly all-black school, she falls in love with Sean Patrick Thomas, who teaches her hip-hop dance steps that get her into dance school. That role won her two more MTV awards, for Best Kiss and Best Female Performance. Rolling Stone pronounced her "the coolest co-ed", putting her on the cover of its April 12, 2001 issue. She told Rolling Stone that despite rumors, she did do all her own dancing in the film, though the way the film was shot and edited made it appear otherwise.

Stiles played opposite Stockard Channing in the dark art house film The Business of Strangers (2001) as a conniving underling who exacts revenge on her cold boss. Channing was impressed by her co-star. "In addition to her talent, she has a quality that is almost feral, something that can make people uneasy. She has an effect on people," said Channing. Stiles also had small roles as a CIA agent in The Bourne Identity (2002) and its sequel The Bourne Supremacy (2004). Aimee Agresti quoted producer Lynda Obst as saying Stiles was turning into the next Meryl Streep.

Her next leading role was in Mona Lisa Smile (2003) as Joan, a student at Wellesley College in 1953, whose art professor, played by Julia Roberts, encourages her to pursue a career in law rather than becoming a wife and mother. Stephen Holden referred to her as one of the cinema's "brightest young stars" but the film met with generally unfavorable reviews.

Stiles played a Wisconsin co-ed with dreams of becoming a doctor who is swept off her feet by a Danish prince in The Prince and Me (2004), directed by Martha Coolidge. Stiles told Leslie Goober that she was very similar to the character, Paige Morgan, but critic Scott Foundas said while she was, as always, "irrepresibly engaging" the film was a "strange career choice for Stiles", echoing criticism in reviews of A Guy Thing (2003), a romantic comedy with Jason Lee and Selma Blair. Dennis Harvey of that film wrote she was "wasted" and Stephen Holden called her "a serious actress from whom comedy does not seem to flow naturally."

Television
Stiles's work on television has been more limited. After two appearances on the PBS series Ghostwriter in 1993 and 1994, she appeared on the medical drama Chicago Hope.

She has been seen in two made-for-tv movies. In Before Women Had Wings (1997) on CBS, she played opposite Ellen Burstyn and Oprah Winfrey in an adaptation of the novel by Connie May Fowler. Marcia Ross, the film's casting director, told Jeffrey Ressner "she projects an intelligent depth, she's not girlish, and she'll easily grow into adult roles."

Stiles also played a teenage girl who finds herself pregnant and runs away from her unforgiving father, played by Bill Smitrovich, in NBC's miniseries The 60's (1999), a film Caryn James dismissed as "conspicuously idiotic". Stiles was the public face of the film, NBC using her face, painted with a peace sign and the American flag, in its advertising and on the cover of the soundtrack album.

On March 17, 2001, Stiles hosted Saturday Night Live  and eight days later introduced a music nominee at the 73rd Annual Academy Awards. She returned to Saturday Night Live on May 5, 2001 in a cameo as President George W. Bush's daughter Jenna. MTV profiled her in its Diary series in 2003 and she was Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher in the spring of 2004.

Youth and Stage Career
Stiles was born in New York City, the eldest of the three children (two daughters and a son) of John O'Hara, a teacher and businessman, and Judith Stiles, a potter. She attended a Quaker school in Manhattan. Stiles was an actress from age eleven, performing with New York's La MaMa Theatre Company, landing work by boldly submitting to the company photographs of herself in costume and asking she be kept in mind for juvenile parts. She graduated to adult roles and, in the summer of 2002, appeared in the lead role Shakespeare in the Park's production of Twelfth Night with Jimmy Smits. Reviewing the production, Ben Brantley of The New York Times saluted Stiles as "the thinking teenagers' movie goddess" put him in mind of a "young Jane Fonda". In the spring of 2004, she made her London stage debut opposite Aaron Eckhart in a revival of David Mamet's play Oleanna at the Garrick Theatre.

Film career
Stiles's first film was a non-speaking part in I Love You, I Love You Not (1996) with Claire Danes and Jude Law. She also had small roles as Harrison Ford's daughter in Alan J. Pakula's The Devil's Own (1997) and in M. Night Shyamalan's Wide Awake. Stiles's first lead was in Wicked (1998, playing a teenage girl who murders her mother so she can have her father all to herself. Joe Balthai wrote she was "the darling of the 1998 Sundance Film Festival", but the film was not commercially released in the U.S. and went direct-to-video.

The role that made her a star was playing Kat Stratford opposite Heath Ledger in Gil Junger's 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew set in a Seattle high school in the first script by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kristen Smith. She won an MTV Movie Award for Breakthrough Female Performance for the role and the Chicago Film Critics voted her the most promising new actress. Foreign critics applauded her work as well. Adina Hoffman praised her as "a young, serious looking Diane Lane" and Martin Hoyle said Stiles played Kat "with bloody-minded independent charm from the beginning with hints of wistfulness beneath the determination."

She subsequently did two more Shakespearean adaptations, playing the Desdemona role opposite Mekhi Pfifer in the title role in Tim Blake Nelson's O (2001), Othello in high school; and Ophelia in Michael Almerayda's Hamlet (2000, with Ethan Hawke in the lead.  Neither was a great success, O being subject to many delays and a change of distributors, Hamlet being an art house film shot on a shoestring budget.

Her next commercial success was in Save the Last Dance (2001), as an aspiring ballerina forced to leave her small town in southern Illinois when her mother is killed to live with her struggling musician father in Chicago. At her new, nearly all-black school, she falls in love with Sean Patrick Thomas, who teaches her hip-hop dance steps that get her into dance school. That role won her two more MTV awards, for Best Kiss and Best Female Performance.

Stiles played opposite Stockard Channing in the dark art house film The Business of Strangers ((2001), as a conniving underling who exacts revenge on her cold boss. Channing was impressed by her co-star. "In addition to her talent, she has a quality that is almost feral, something that can make people uneasy.  She has an effect on people."

Television
Stiles has been seen in two made-for-tv movies. In Before Women Had Wings (1997), she played opposite Ellen Burstyn and Ophah Winfrey in an adaptation of the novel by Connie May Fowler. Stiles also played a teenage girl who finds herself pregnant and runs away from her unforgiving father, played by Bill Smitrovich in NBC's miniseries The 60's (1999), a film Caryn James dismissed as "conspicuously idiotic". Stiles was the public face of the film, NBC using her face, painted with a peace sign and the American flag in its advertising and on the cover of the soundtrack album.

Stiles hosted Saturday Night Live and eight days later introduced a music nominee at the 76th Annual Academy Awards. Rolling Stone pronounced her "the coolest co-ed", putting her on the cover of its April 12, 2001 issue. She returned to Saturday Night Live on May 5, 2001 in a cameo as George W. Bush's daugther Jenna.

Stiles is an English major at Columbia University in New York City. On March 17, 2001,

Stiles played a CIA agent in The Bourne Identity and its sequel The Bourne Supremacy,, a 1950s student at Wellesley College under the tutelage of Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile, and a Wisconsin co-ed swept off her feet by a Danish prince in The Prince and Me.