Julia Styles

Julia O'Hara Stiles (born March 28, 1981) is an American actress. Stiles began acting at the age of 11 as part of New York's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Her film debut was a small role at age 15 in ''I Love You, I Love You Not'' (1996), followed by a lead role in ''Wicked'' (1998) for which she received the Karlovy Vary Film Festival Award for Best Actress. She rose to prominence with leading roles in teen films such as ''10 Things I Hate About You'' (1999), '' Down to You'' (2000), and ''Save the Last Dance'' (2001). Her accolades include a Teen Choice Award and two MTV Movie Awards, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe Award, and Primetime Emmy Award.

Stiles added to her list of credits with films such as '' The Business of Strangers'' (2001), ''Mona Lisa Smile'' (2003), and ''The Omen'' (2006), and became known to audiences worldwide with her portrayal of Nicky Parsons in the ''Bourne'' franchise (2002–2016). Her other notable film credits include ''Hamlet'', ''State and Main'' (both 2000), '' O'' (2001), ''A Guy Thing'' (2002), '' Carolina'' (2003), ''The Prince & Me'' (2004), '' Edmond'', ''A Little Trip to Heaven'' (both 2005), ''The Cry of the Owl'' (2009), ''Silver Linings Playbook'' (2012), ''Out of the Dark'' (2014), ''Blackway'' (2015), '' 11:55'' (2016), '' Hustlers'' (2019) and '' Orphan: First Kill'' (2022).

Outside of film, Stiles played Lumen Pierce on the fifth season of ''Dexter'' (2010), earning nominations for the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress. From 2012 to 2014 she appeared as the titular character in the web series ''Blue'', for which she earned two IAWTV Awards for Best Actress. From 2017 to 2020 she starred as Georgina Ryland on the Sky Atlantic series ''Riviera''. She starred in the Amazon series '' The Lake'' (2022–2023).

Early life and education

Stiles was born in New York City to Judith Newcomb Stiles, a Greenwich Village artist, and John O'Hara, a businessman. She is the oldest of three children; her siblings are John Junior and Jane (also an actress). Stiles is of English, Irish, and Italian descent. She started acting at age 11, performing with New York's La MaMa Theatre Company.

Career

Film and television

After finding an agent, Stiles began auditioning for television in 1993 and films in 1996. She made her acting debut in 1993 on the mystery show ''Ghostwriter'' as Erica Dansby.

Stiles's first film role was in ''I Love You, I Love You Not'' (1996), with Claire Danes and Jude Law. She also had small roles as Harrison Ford's character's daughter in Alan J. Pakula's ''The Devil's Own'' (1997) and in M. Night Shyamalan's ''Wide Awake'' (1998). Her first lead was in ''Wicked'' (1998), in which she played a teenage girl who might have murdered her mother so she could have her father all to herself. Critic Joe Baltake wrote she was "the darling of the 1998 Sundance Film Festival." She next starred in the TV miniseries ''The '60s'' in 1999.

Stiles was cast at the age of 17 for the role of Kat Stratford, opposite Heath Ledger in Gil Junger's ''10 Things I Hate About You'', an adaptation of ''The Taming of the Shrew'' set in a high school in Seattle. She won an MTV Movie Award for Breakthrough Female Performance for the role. The Chicago Film Critics voted her the most promising new actress of the year. Her next starring role was in '' Down to You'' (2000), which was panned by critics, but earned both her and her co-star Freddie Prinze, Jr. a Teen Choice Award nomination for their on-screen chemistry. She subsequently appeared in two more Shakespearean adaptations. The first was as Ophelia in Michael Almereyda's ''Hamlet'' (2000), with Ethan Hawke in the lead. The second was in the Desdemona role, opposite Mekhi Phifer, in Tim Blake Nelson's '' O'' (2001), a version of ''Othello'' set at a boarding school. Neither film was a great success; ''O'' was subject to many delays and a change of distributors, and ''Hamlet'' was an art house film shot on a minimal budget.

Stiles's next commercial success was in ''Save the Last Dance'' (2001) as an aspiring ballerina forced to leave her small town in downstate Illinois to live with her struggling musician father in Chicago after her mother dies in a car accident. At her new, nearly all-black school, she falls in love with the character played by Sean Patrick Thomas who teaches her hip-hop dance steps that help get her into the Juilliard School. The role won her two more MTV awards for Best Kiss and Best Female Performance and a Teen Choice Award for best fight scene for her battle with Bianca Lawson. ''Rolling Stone'' named her "the coolest co-ed" and put her on the cover of its April 12, 2001, issue. She told ''Rolling Stone'' that she performed all her own dancing in the film, except for some closeups of the feet.

In David Mamet's ''State and Main'' (2000), about a film shooting on location in a small town in Vermont, she played a teenage girl who seduces a film actor (Alec Baldwin) with a weakness for teen girls. Stiles also appeared opposite Stockard Channing in the dark art house film '' The Business of Strangers'' (2001) as a conniving, amoral secretary who exacts revenge on her boss. Channing was impressed by her co-star: "In addition to her talent, she has a quality that is almost feral, something that can make people uneasy. She has an effect on people." Stiles later described the ''Bourne'' franchise as very important for her career, stating that it "reinvented the action genre, especially for female characters". Her small role as Treadstone operative Nicolette "Nicky" Parsons in '' The Bourne Identity'' (2002) grew in ''The Bourne Supremacy'' (2004), then greatly expanded in '' The Bourne Ultimatum'' (2007).

Between the ''Bourne'' films, she appeared in ''Mona Lisa Smile'' (2003) as Joan, a student at Wellesley College in 1953, whose art professor (Julia Roberts) encourages her to pursue a career in law rather than become a wife and mother. Critic Stephen Holden called her one of cinema's "brightest young stars", but the film met with generally unfavorable reviews. Stiles played a Wisconsin college student who is swept off her feet by a Danish prince, played by Luke Mably, in ''The Prince and Me'' (2004), directed by Martha Coolidge. Stiles told an interviewer that she was very similar to her character Paige Morgan. Critic Scott Foundas said she was "irrepressibly engaging" and the film was a "strange career choice for Stiles". This echoed criticism in reviews of ''A Guy Thing'' (2003), a romantic comedy with Jason Lee and Selma Blair. Critic Dennis Harvey wrote that Stiles was "wasted" and Holden called her "a serious actress from whom comedy does not seem to flow naturally". In 2006, Stiles starred opposite her ''Hamlet'' co-star Liev Schreiber in ''The Omen,'' a remake of the 1976 horror film. She returned to the ''Bourne'' series with a much larger role in '' The Bourne Ultimatum'' (2007), her highest-grossing film to date.

Stiles acted in '' Between Us'' (2012) with Taye Diggs, David Harbour, and Melissa George. ''Between Us'' is the screen adaptation of the off-Broadway play of the same name by Joe Hortua. Stiles starred alongside David Cross and America Ferrera in the dark comedy ''It's a Disaster''. The film premiered at the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival and was picked up by Oscilloscope Laboratories and received a limited release the next year. Stiles had a small but pivotal role as a reporter in the 2013 British-American film ''Closed Circuit''. Stiles starred in the indie supernatural thriller ''Out of the Dark'' (2014) alongside Scott Speedman and Stephen Rea.

In 2015, Stiles signed on to reprise her role as Nicky Parsons in ''Jason Bourne'', the fifth installment of the ''Bourne'' franchise. She also featured as Courtney, the wayward mother of Sophie Nélisse, in ''The Great Gilly Hopkins

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