Julia Stiles Reveals She Used a Body Double While Filming “Save the Last Dance”

Ahead of competing in season 35 of ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ Stiles and her pro dance partner, Ezra Sosa, cleared up some common misconceptions about her dance experience

NEED TO KNOW

• Julia Stiles revealed that she used a body double for most of the dance sequences in the 2001 film Save the Last Dance
• The actress is paired with dance pro Ezra Sosa for season 35 of Dancing with the Stars
• While participating in a social media trend, Stiles and Sosa declared that they are “ready to SLAY ON DWTS”

Julia Stiles is setting the record straight on just how much dance training she got while starring in Save the Last Dance. 

While participating in a TikTok trend with her season 35 Dancing with the Stars pro dance partner, Ezra Sosa, the 45-year-old actress revealed that she used a body double while filming the 2001 movie. 

Stiles and Sosa, 25, began their social media video by debunking rumors that the actress went to The Juilliard School, clarifying that the misconception comes from her role as Sara Johnson, an aspiring ballerina who moves to Chicago to live with her father after her mother dies in a car accident. 

The pair went on to deny murmurings that Stiles is a “trained dancer” ahead of her stint on Dancing with the Stars. Rather, they said she “only danced for a role,” adding that most of the complex sequences in Save the Last Dance were performed by a “body double.”

Stiles, who said she hasn’t danced since the movie, declared that she and Sosa are “ready to SLAY ON DWTS.”

While she didn’t do most of the dancing herself, Stiles previously shared insight into the “dance training” she underwent for the film role. 

“It was so fun and such an awesome opportunity to get to do that kind of, like, rigorous training and choreography rehearsals,” she said during a 2021 interview with Today. “I had to bust my butt to get in shape. And also, you know, catch up to the level that Sara — or, at least, look like I could catch up to — I could be at the level that Sara was supposed to be at.”

Stiles also explained that she was only cast in the film after the director, Thomas Carter, watched her character Kat Stratford in 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You drunkenly dance on a pool table. 

“He saw that and he was like, ‘Oh, you have rhythm,’ ” she recalled at the time. “So then I screen tested with Sean (Patrick Thomas). And then another actor who was up for the role. And then they hired me.”

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Now, Stiles is preparing to compete on season 35 of Dancing with the Stars after declining the invitation in previous years. 

“It’s taken a couple of years,” she said during a recent appearance on Good Morning America. “They’ve asked me in previous years, [and] every year I say, ‘Oh my God, I love the show, and I would love to go on, but I just can’t do it. I just can’t do it.’ ”

“For a number of reasons, the first one being my own fear,” she added. “This year I was like, ‘I’m scared I might say yes.’ The timing just felt right, and I was like, ‘You only live once.’ ”

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