LOS ANGELES – Julia Stiles says she checked with Michelle Williams before turning her memories of Heath Ledger into a televised Dancing with the Stars tribute. Williams agreed, Stiles said, but the actress drew a distinction between recounting that conversation and speaking on behalf of Ledger’s family.
“I did ask Michelle if this was okay,” Stiles said in a post-show interview with Extra. She said Williams answered yes. Asked what Ledger’s family would think of the performance, however, she declined to answer for them: “I don’t really want to speak for them.”
Williams, an actress who starred opposite Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, is the mother of their daughter, Matilda. The former couple were together from 2004 until 2007, PEOPLE noted in its report on Stiles’ remarks. That personal connection explains whom Stiles said she approached before making the dedication.
The account of Williams’ answer comes from Stiles. It is not a separate interview with Williams, a reproduced message from her or a statement issued by Ledger’s wider family. Stiles’ own response drew that boundary, even as she confirmed that she had sought Williams’ agreement.
The disclosure adds a detail about the preparation behind the Heath Ledger tribute and cast reunion broadcast on October 20. Stiles and professional partner Ezra Sosa performed a contemporary routine honoring her late 10 Things I Hate About You co-star, before members of the film’s cast joined her on the ballroom floor.
In the same interview, Stiles described the week as “transformative.” She said memories and nostalgia had made the first day of rehearsals difficult, and credited Sosa with recognizing that she was struggling. Her description concerned the process of preparing the performance, not just her reaction after the televised dance was over.
According to Stiles, Sosa changed the concept, or how they thought about the routine, in a way that helped her open up. She did not give a step-by-step account of changes to the choreography. The distinction in her explanation was between simply revisiting the film and finding an approach that she felt able to perform.
The rehearsal emotions were not entirely unexpected. Before the broadcast, Stiles had discussed the dedication with PEOPLE, saying she initially thought the years since the film would give her enough distance. Watching old footage, looking at photographs and hearing the actors’ voices brought the memories closer again.
The decision to revisit that work was already public before the episode. ABC News previewed her dedication to Ledger. What the later interview adds is Stiles’ account of whom she contacted and how she and Sosa worked through the preparation, rather than an announcement of a new performance.
Their song was Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” associated with Ledger’s serenade in the 1999 film. Stiles played Kat Stratford opposite his Patrick Verona. The routine drew on the film the actors made together, giving viewers a recognizable reference while allowing the dedication to address the person she remembered from the set.
Stiles’ place in the Dancing with the Stars season 35 cast provided the setting for that return. The dedication was one performance within an ongoing competition, but its preparation also involved people outside the celebrity-professional partnership that rehearsed and performed the dance.
Stiles told Extra that she had called former colleagues to help assemble the reunion, rather than leave one person to represent the movie or Ledger. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Larisa Oleynik, Gabrielle Union, Susan May Pratt and Andrew Keegan appeared with her after the routine. Five returning co-stars joined Stiles; that does not mean every member of the original cast attended.
She also said the film’s two female screenwriters were present. Her account of arranging the gathering emphasized a chain of invitations: she contacted people, and others agreed to come if their fellow colleagues would be there. That describes how she helped organize the group, without establishing that every conversation followed the same course.
The reunion and the judges’ decision were different parts of the evening. Stiles and Sosa earned 36 out of 40, and no couple was eliminated. The wider Dedication Night results cover that competition outcome. Williams’ reported approval concerns Stiles’ choice to make the tribute, not the scoring or the voting result.
Stiles was 17 when she made 10 Things I Hate About You and is now 45. Ledger died in 2008 at 28. Those dates give the return to the film a long personal history, but they do not by themselves explain how anyone else close to Ledger experienced the broadcast. Stiles declined to make that claim.
Her remarks leave the content of the private exchange largely private: she said she asked whether the dedication was okay and was told yes. The interview did not include Williams describing her response to the finished dance. It was Stiles’ account of seeking agreement before taking a shared memory onto a public stage.
Asked what Ledger had taught her as a young artist, Stiles returned to the atmosphere he created for the younger cast. She called him a “beacon of light” and remembered his playfulness, the fun he brought to the set and the way he brought out the light in other people.
