Julia Stiles will undoubtedly have Us reaching for tissues during her Dancing With the Stars tribute to late costar Heath Ledger.
“We’re still, kind of, working it out, but I know it’s going to be really special,” Stiles, 45, said on the Thursday, October 15, episode of Hulu’s “Get Real” podcast. “I can’t really say too much in advance.”
Stiles and her pro partner, Ezra Sosa, are set to perform a contemporary routine to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” on Dedication Night in honor of Ledger. (The Australian actor, who sang the Frankie Valli tune to Stiles in the 1999 movie 10 Things I Hate About You, died in 2008 at age 28.)
While Stiles kept the specifics of her next performance to a minimum, she hinted it will be especially emotional.
Stiles and Sosa, 25, most recently lit up the DWTS ballroom with their Super Bowl Night jazz routine on Tuesday, October 13, performing to a remixed version of Jennifer Lopez’s “Jenny From the Block.” The actress honored her starring role in 2001’s Save the Last Dance. Her costar Sean Patrick Thomas even made a cameo, standing behind Sosa — jacket held over his shoulder and all — much like his character when Stiles’ Sara auditioned for Juilliard. The routine scored 33 out of 40 points from the judges.
Stiles and Sosa have also been traveling back and forth from Los Angeles, where DWTS is filmed, and her home base in New York City. (Stiles lives on the East Coast with her husband, Preston Cook, and their three sons.)
“[Producers] were like, ‘You can fly back and forth every week. You just have to be here in L.A. on Tuesdays,’” Stiles added on Thursday’s podcast. “I was like, ‘Great.’ And my husband was like, ‘You’re definitely not going to want to do that. You’re going to be exhausted.’ So, we reeled that idea in.”
She continued, “My family came and visited me for, like, a week in September. So, I’ve been trading off. … I didn’t want to miss out on rehearsal time. They’ve been nice to bring Ezra with me.”
According to Stiles, it didn’t take much to convince Sosa to join her in the Big Apple.
“Ezra wanted to come to New York more than I did. I was like, ‘Yeah, I miss my family.’ But, he was like, ‘The guys in New York are really hot,’” she quipped. “He’s in the honeymoon phase. It’s like a novelty for him.”
Dancing With the Stars airs on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
