Julia Stiles Wanted to Be Just Like Kat Stratford, Too (NYT)

Julia Stiles Wanted to Be Just Like Kat Stratford, Too (NYT)

Source: The New York Times

Julia Stiles starts lunch with a disclaimer: “I’m kind of like a bundle of emotions, because I have a 5-month-old baby and I went into directing my first movie.”

Maybe you didn’t know Stiles had gotten into directing. Her feature, “Wish You Were Here,” doesn’t yet have a release date and has only been lightly covered. You definitely didn’t know about the baby, because Stiles declined to do the standard-issue celebrity-birth promotion (post an announcement on Instagram to get aggregated by People magazine). She’s been in the business for nearly three decades. It’s not that she doesn’t know the norms. But participating in the norms just because they’re the norms has never been her thing.

“I didn’t really talk about it,” she said of her latest pregnancy, though she was excited to talk about it now, about how being a parent (her older sons are 6 and 2) nourishes her work. “I think that actually being a mom is really great training for being a director,” she said. “You have to think 10 steps ahead but also be in the present moment. You have to be good at time management. You have to be sensitive to people’s needs and guide them, but also hold a boundary.”

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Julia Stiles Wraps On Directorial Debut ‘Wish You Were Here’!

Julia Stiles Wraps On Directorial Debut ‘Wish You Were Here’!

Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated actress Julia Stiles has wrapped production on her directorial debut, Wish You Were Here, based on the bestseller by Renee Carlino. The cast includes Isabelle Fuhrman (The Novice), Mena Massoud (Aladdin), Jimmie Fails (The Last Black Man in San Francisco), Gabby Kono (Magic Carpet Rides), Jennifer Grey (A Real Pain) and Kelsey Grammer (Frasier).

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