Julia Stiles asked Michelle Williams for permission to dedicate emotional “DWTS” dance to Heath Ledger
Julia Stiles asked Michelle Williams for permission to dedicate emotional “DWTS” dance to Heath Ledger
Kathleen PerriconeThu, October 22, 2026 at 1:55 AM UTC
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Julia Stiles; Michelle WilliamsCredit: Neilson Barnard/Getty; Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagicKey Points -
Julia Stiles says she asked Michelle Williams for permission to dedicate her emotional DWTS dance to Heath Ledger.
Williams and Ledger were in a relationship for three years and welcomed a daughter, Matilda, in 2005.
Ledger died from an accidental drug overdose in January 2028, four months after he and Williams split.
Julia Stiles made quite a few phone calls to organize the 10 Things I Hate About You reunion honoring Heath Ledger, and the first was to Michelle Williams.
Ahead of “Dedication Night” on Dancing With the Stars, the actress reached out to Williams, the mother of Ledger’s daughter Matilda, to ask “if this was okay,” Stiles told Extra. “And she said, ‘yes.’”
But as for the rest of the Ledger family in Australia, she admitted, “I don’t really want to speak for them.”
Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams at the 2006 Academy AwardsCredit: Dan MacMedan/WireImage
Williams and Ledger met while making Brokeback Mountain in 2004, and the following year, Matilda was born. The couple ultimately split in the fall of 2007, and just months later the 28-year-old actor died of an accidental drug overdose.
For Stiles, honoring her costar was emotional yet “very transformative,” she told Extra after dancing to Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” the song Ledger’s character serenades her with in the 1999 teen rom-com, 10 Things I Hate About You.
“I was like balling the first day of rehearsals because of all the nostalgia and the memories,” she revealed, “but also because I was… bumping up against something.”
Her professional partner, Ezra Sosa, was sensitive to what she was going through. “He clocked it and he changed the concept or the way that we thought about the dance in a way that really opened me up, and I’m forever grateful,” Stiles continued.
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Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles in ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ (1999)Credit: Richard Cartwright
Reuniting the cast of the film 27 years later was much easier for Stiles.
“It was a group conversation with the producers when we talked about dedicating it to Heath, we needed to find somebody to represent the movie to join us on stage,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “And I was like, well, it has to be the whole cast, can’t just be one person, ‘cause we were a pack.”
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Stiles called Joseph Gordon-Levitt first, followed by Larisa Oleynik, who played her sister in the movie. “And then Gabby [Union], Susan [May Pratt], [Andrew] Keegan,” she recalled to Entertainment Tonight. “Everybody was kind of like, ‘I’ll do it if everybody else does it!’ So it just took one. And it was so special to have them here.”
While rehearsing with Sosa, Stiles opened up to her partner about Ledger and his impact on her at such a young age.
“I learned a lot from Heath. He was so authentic,” she said on DWTS. “I was so charmed by him. I see pictures from that time like, ‘Wow, it was so easy with him.’ I have so many great memories, but I’m also sad because I really wish that I could pick up the phone and be like, ‘Hey dude.’”
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
