Tears were shed around the world last night when the opening notes of Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” filled the ballroom on Dancing With the Stars (DWTS). Julia Stiles, alongside her pro-dance partner Ezra Sosa, took the stage for Dedication Night with a tribute to her late 10 Things I Hate About You co-star Heath Ledger.
The performance rooted in nostalgia; but beneath the familiar music and choreography was something much more universal – the experience of missing someone long after expecting to have moved on.
Nearly two decades after Ledger’s accidental overdose in 2008, Stiles found herself revisiting a loss she thought she’d one day learned to live with. Speaking to Variety at the InStyle Imagemaker Awards on Oct. 15, Stiles admitted that preparing the dance had brought up emotions she hadn’t anticipated.
“I was crying in rehearsals today,” she said. “I didn’t expect it. Of course, I watch the show, I know that ‘Dedication Night’ is emotional. But I thought… I felt like I was distanced from it enough. Like, ‘Oh, it was so many years ago.’”
Ledger’s impact continues to touch individuals who never knew him personally. His legacy lives on through his performances and the memories they bring his viewers. For Stiles, however, the performance wasn’t simply about the legacy of a celebrity or Ledger’s iconic films – she was remembering a friend, honoring him, and in a way, she was grieving Ledger, again.
Stiles said during rehearsal, “I learned a lot from Heath. He was so authentic.”
“I see pictures from that time and I’m like wow. It was so easy with him,” Stiles recalled on DWTS. “I have so many great memories, but I’m also sad because I wish that I could pick up the phone and be like, ‘Hey dude.’”
In an old interview with HuffPost, Stiles reflected on her loss, remembering their time filming the movie as unusually joyful. During the interview, she recalled finding a note Heath had left for her on hotel stationery from the Sheraton in Tacoma, where the cast had been staying for a shoot. She remembered the message including the words, “Dance like you’ve never heard the music and love like you’ve never been hurt.”
What a poignant letter to remember someone by. Perhaps his words inspired her dance, but whether or not she’d heard the music, we certainly had.
Nostalgia seeped into the audience as Stiles emerged in a familiar colored dress, with her familiar curled, long blond hair. At 45, she stepped right back into high-school-aged “Kat” on prom night, and she did so effortlessly.
The hair, the dress, the song, the choreo. The tribute was all that it could have been. And then Stiles’ voice came on.
Sosa handed Stiles a single rose and left the stage. As Sosa walked away, Stiles turned her back to the audience and moved toward the back of the stage, where an image of Stiles and Ledger from the film was projected. As she walked, audio played from the iconic poem read by Styles, “10 Things I Hate About You,” where she confesses her feelings for Ledger’s character.
The cast then came to join Stiles, and they all held hands at the end of the tribute to Ledger.
Many contestants use Tribute Night to honor someone who would be there to hear it, such as a parent or a sibling. But Stiles took the day to honor Ledger, perhaps as a way to say the things she never had the chance to say through dance.
Stiles’ dance served as a soft reminder that it’s okay to feel deeply. Sometimes, we feel as if we should be over something, but we aren’t. Or we are, until we aren’t again.
Grief can feel distant until it resurfaces in a dream or on a stranger’s familiar face. Grief has no rhyme or reason and neither does the world.
Stiles and Sosa’s routine scored all 9s from the judges, which is no easy feat. Though in hearts around the world, the performance scored a 10. Stiles’ dance healed something in a generation of people who didn’t know they needed it. Perhaps it stirred grief they hadn’t realized they were carrying.
Thank you Julia Stiles and Ezra Sosa. Your tribute was beautiful.
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