Julia Stiles’s tribute to Heath Ledger brought back the song, the poem and, finally, the people who helped make 10 Things I Hate About You unforgettable.
On the October 20 “Dedication Night” episode of Dancing with the Stars, Stiles and professional partner Ezra Sosa danced to Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” It was a direct callback to Patrick Verona’s stadium serenade to Kat Stratford in the 1999 film.
The ending brought another familiar voice into the ballroom: audio of Kat reading her poem. Stiles placed a rose beneath an image of herself and Ledger, then reunited with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gabrielle Union, Larisa Oleynik, Andrew Keegan and Susan May Pratt. The former castmates stood together, holding hands, to honor the actor they had worked with 27 years earlier.
Stiles had personally asked them to come. “I begged them, each and every one of them, and they all rallied,” she told Variety.
Two reactions on X picked out those specific callbacks. @TheOscargot wrote, “When they did Heath’s choreography. I smiled, then cried.” @adriasmonica focused on the reunion: “THE 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT U CAST IS THERE IM STILL CRYING.”
Ledger died in 2008 at 28. After the performance, Stiles remembered how he brought out the best in the people around him, according to ABC’s Good Morning America. She and Sosa received four nines, for a total of 36 out of 40.
Video: Dancing With The Stars/ABC. Featured still: Disney, via Good Morning America.
