About Me
She was born Julia O'Hara Stiles on the 28th of March, 1981, in New York City, and is of Irish, Italian and English heritage. Her mother, Judith, was an artist, working in ceramics, and ran a ceramics store in Greenwich Village. Her father, John, was a Second Grade teacher in Harlem, who helped in selling Judith's work. There would be two more children - Jane, nine years Julia's junior, and Johnny, born three years after Jane.Julia was raised in a loft apartment in SoHo, which served as home and studio, so there was a constant stream of artists and aficionados of all races passing through. A curious child, Julia took an interest in everyone, and quickly joined in the political arguments that raged around the kitchen table, her parents being "loud-mouthed" and liberal, true radicals of the Sixties. By the age of six, she was demanding to work in her mum's store, sitting behind the cash register, chatting to the customers and going through the bills. During breaks she would write letters, not to imaginary friends but to political leaders, demanding action. One she sent to Mayor Ed Koch, suggesting that more bins be placed on the streets.Indeed, Julia spent a lot of her time writing. If she ever had a problem, she'd write to her parents about it. Then, if necessary, she would argue her case. She became very persuasive very quickly. Without taking official lessons, she more or less taught herself to act while watching TV series The Honeymooners, acting out a different role each evening.At 15, she made her big screen debut, as Claire Danes' buddy in I Love You, I Love You Not, a movie which, rather unfortunately, compared the problems of a girl in high school to the troubles her grandmother (Jeanne Moreau) faced in AuschwitzIn. 1997, the same year as The Devil's Own, she made a big splash as Ellen Barkin's daughter in the Oprah Winfrey-produced Before Women Had Wings, concerning child abuse. Having played a hippie chick in the rather wretched TV series The Sixties, 1999 saw her first Shakespeare adaptation. This was 10 Things I Hate About You, based on The Taming Of The Shrew, Julia starring as the shrew in question.Very much in demand, Julia had been letting college take a back seat, squeezing in a semester of study, football and karate whenever her work schedule allowed. Her drive into more adult movies was working. After The Bourne Supremacy, she would return to David Mamet and William H. Macy in Edmond, another shocking feature where businessman Macy, realising that he despises his middle-class life, takes a trip into the sleazy urban underground. After a series of tawdry encounters he gradually slips into sociopathy, revealing his hidden racism to waitress Stiles who in turn makes the mistake of inviting him back to her place. Also arriving in 2005 would be A Little Trip to Heaven, an arty indie thriller directed by Icelander Baltasar Kormakur. Here Stiles would play a wife and mother painfully loyal to her unstable husband. When the couple claim a million dollar settlement after Stiles' brother is killed in an accident, cold-hearted insurance investigator Forest Whitaker arrives to see how accidental the death really was.Come 2006, now dating painter and sculptor Jonathan Cramer (named by New York Magazine as "New York's sexiest artist"), Stiles would re-enter the mainstream with The Omen, an arguably unnecessary remake of the 1976 horror classic. Here she'd step into Lee Remick's shoes as Katherine Thorn, wife of US diplomat Liev Schreiber, who mothers baby Damien in the mistaken belief that he's her kid and not the Antichrist. Guilt-ridden by her inability to bond with the child, haunted by sinister dreams and undermined by evil nanny Mrs Baylock (here played by her Fran's Bed co-star Mia Farrow), she inevitably gets it from the satanic tot. It's clear that, with The Prince And Me gone and The Bourne Ultimatum on its way, Julia Stiles has at last broken away from the teen flicks that raised her up but would have ruined her. In both thrillers and rom-coms sheâ€,,s proved herself to be equally adept. Like Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman and Kirsten Dunst, sheâ€,,s always had a maturity that belied her years, and itâ€,,s helping her grow up with great aplomb. And, like the other three, she will be a star for years.
