Julia Stiles appeared on Brett Goldstein’s “Films to Be Buried With” podcast and remembered feeling “slimy” when she was forced to perform a dance scene in the 2000 rom-com “Down to You” after Harvey Weinstein took control of the production. Stiles said Weinstein ruined the movie.
“Down to You” paired Stiles with Freddie Prinze Jr. in the story of two college students who fall for each other and have an up-and-down romance. The movie was made during the teen rom-com boom, when both actors became icons of the year prior thanks to the hits “She’s All That” and “10 Things I Hate About You.” Stiles called Prinze a “lovely, wonderful actor” and said the “Down to You” script was “very good. And then Harvey Weinstein got his hands on it and decided to capitalize on this trend… and it just became dumb.”
“When we did reshoots, I’m told that [Harvey] decided that because of the success of ‘Save the Last Dance’ and ’10 Things I Hate About You,’ with me dancing on the pool table, that he needed to have me dance in the film,” Stiles continued. “It was just dumb. ‘Let’s get her on a pool table and have her [dance].’ It wasn’t even imaginative. I felt so slimy doing it the whole time. I don’t know if it made it into the film but It was annoying. Because I was like, ‘Well, this is so cheap, and it’s not adding to the story.’”
“Down to You” was written and directed by Kris Isacsson. It featured a supporting cast that included Selma Blair, Ashton Kutcher, Rosario Dawson, Lucie Arnaz and Henry Winkler. Despite the heavyweight pairing of Stiles and Prinze Jr. for the teen rom-com genre, the movie only earned $24 million at the box office and it was mostly panned by film critics.
Weinstein is currently awaiting retrial on rape charges in Manhattan after the state’s Court of Appeals overturned his initial conviction last year. He was also sentenced to 16 years in his Los Angeles rape case. He is suffering from a litany of illnesses, including bone marrow cancer, coronary artery disease and diabetes.
