Julia Stiles did not take the floor alone for Heath Ledger. Her Dedication Night routine on Dancing with the Stars ended with several of her 10 Things I Hate About You co-stars walking out to join her, reuniting the cast of the 1999 Touchstone Pictures comedy where she and Ledger first worked together.
Stiles and her pro partner Ezra Sosa danced a Contemporary to Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” on Tuesday night’s episode, the same song Ledger’s Patrick Verona sings to Stiles’ Kat Stratford in the film. In rehearsal footage, Stiles said she wanted to recreate “the lust for life that he had in that scene.” She said last week that rehearsing the tribute had her in tears.
How The Tribute Came Together
At the end of the routine, audio of Stiles reciting the poem Kat reads in the film played as a photo of Stiles and Ledger from the movie appeared on screen. Stiles placed a rose on the steps.
Then her old castmates came out. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gabrielle Union, Larisa Oleynik, Susan May Pratt and Andrew Keegan joined Stiles on the floor as the routine closed, Just Jared reported. For Stiles, the special guests were her on-screen Padua High classmates, 27 years after the movie hit theaters.
How The Judges Scored It
The panel, with Kym Johnson sitting in as a guest judge, gave Stiles four 9s for a 36 out of 40, tied for the fourth-highest score of the night.
Dedication Night
10 Things I Hate About You, a modern take on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, was Stiles’ breakout starring role. Ledger died in 2008 and won a posthumous Oscar the following year for playing the Joker in The Dark Knight.
Tatyana Ali also used the night to honor a late co-star, dedicating her dance to her Fresh Prince of Bel-Air TV dad James Avery, with Alfonso Ribeiro joining her. All 10 remaining couples performed routines dedicated to a person or place that shaped their lives. Fan votes cast during the live show are normally combined with the judges’ scores to send a couple home, but no one was eliminated on Dedication Night, DraftKings Network reported.
Dancing with the Stars airs live Tuesday nights on ABC and Disney+, and episodes stream the next day on Hulu.
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