Larisa Oleynik, who performed Kat’s child sister, Bianca, recollects rewatching “10 Things” lately. “The thing I love so much — and I’m going to get emotional — is, she’s so earnest,” Oleynik stated. “She’s so genuine. And to me, that is the most beautiful thing about Julia’s portrayal of that character. It is coming from a deeply heartfelt, vulnerable, sensitive, insanely intelligent place,” she stated, whereas including: “I don’t think anyone else would have been able to be that real.”
Stiles began appearing as a 12-year-old in New York’s La MaMa Experimental Theatre Membership, however had a tough time discovering her place in movie. “I was a 17-year-old girl, auditioning for romantic comedies and commercials and TV shows and always being told, ‘You’re too serious,’” she stated. “You know, ‘Smile. You’re too angsty.’” That modified when she learn the “10 Things” script. “It was the first time that I had read a character in a teenage romantic comedy that spoke to me,” she stated.
As Oleynik remembers it, Stiles was that lady, “a cool, downtown New Yorker” who, although just a few months Oleynik’s senior, “seemed so much more mature.” Earlier than the “10 Things” desk learn, Oleynik had gone to Fred Segal to purchase her real-life junior promenade costume, an indigo slip that wasn’t all that dissimilar to the prom dress Kat wears in the movie. “I really, really wanted her approval,” Oleynik stated. “I remember thinking, if Julia approves, I can go.”
IN 2002, ACCORDING TO THE self-appointed cultural anthropologists at Newsweek journal, there have been precisely three kinds of teenage women in America. You may be an Alpha: a blonde who liked cheerleading, worshiped Gwyneth and Vogue, and managed to be “both bitchy and nice.” You may be a Beta, which was principally an aspiring Alpha; Betas reportedly took weight loss supplements as after-school snacks, spent after-prom at a motel, and have been, tragically, brunette. Or you possibly can be part of a rising cohort of Gamma Women: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”-watching, flare-jeans-wearing freethinkers who have been “obsessed with Shakespeare,” dated the “class smartass,” and subscribed to Jane journal. The poster baby for the Gamma Lady: Julia Stiles.
