She insisted the whole cast come back for him. On Dedication Night, five of them walked out, took her hands, and faced his picture together. Her Heath Ledger tribute left the ballroom in tears.
By Rainbeau — The Recapper, CelebnMusic247
Dancing With the Stars has a Dedication Night every season. It has never had one like this.
On Tuesday, Oct. 20, Julia Stiles devoted her performance to Heath Ledger, her 10 Things I Hate About You co-star, who died in 2008 at 28. Stiles and her pro partner, Ezra Sosa, performed a barefoot contemporary routine — candles around the stage, Stiles in a flowing blue dress echoing the one she wore in the 1999 film — to Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” the song Ledger’s Patrick Verona famously serenaded her Kat Stratford with from the bleachers. Stiles wove in a few of Ledger’s own moves from the film, watched the movie’s climactic poem scene on the ballroom screen, and laid a rose on the stairs beneath his picture.
Eric McCandless/Disney
Then the ballroom doors opened. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gabrielle Union, Larisa Oleynik, Andrew Keegan and Susan May Pratt — the rest of the 10 Things pack — walked out, joined Stiles center stage, held hands, and stood looking up at Ledger’s image with her.
Stiles told Entertainment Weekly the reunion was never going to be partial. “When we talked about dedicating it to Heath, we needed to find somebody to sort of represent the movie or to join us on stage,” she said. “And I was like, ‘Well, it has to be the whole cast. It can’t just be one person, because we were a pack.'” She told Entertainment Tonight she called Gordon-Levitt first — “I called Joey first. And Larisa” — and that “everybody was kind of like, ‘I’ll do it if everybody else does it!’ So it just took one. And it was so special to have them here.” One absence was explained on the record: David Krumholtz wanted to be there, Stiles said, but is filming an HBO show in New York and couldn’t fly in.
The judges felt it. Carrie Ann Inaba, in tears, called the dance an “expression of the soul” and said, “That was so healing.” Derek Hough: “This performance will last forever.” Guest judge Kym Johnson called it a gorgeous dedication. Stiles and Sosa scored 36 out of 40 — their best marks of the season.
Stiles admitted the emotion caught her off guard. “I’m actually surprised at how emotional it’s been,” she told People before the show. “I thought, ‘Oh, I’m distanced enough from it. The movie was so many years ago.’ But something about watching clips from that movie, seeing our pictures, hearing our voices is bringing up a lot.” And her reason for doing it was simple: “He lives on because his performance in that film was so incredible.”
Heath Ledger Tribute: The 247 Take
The 247 Take — Reality TV manufactures emotion for a living, which is exactly why this landed differently: nothing about it was manufactured. Stiles protected the moment the way you protect something real — she refused a solo tribute, begged her old castmates one by one, and made them a pack again for four minutes, 27 years after a teen movie none of them knew would outlive them all. The score was 36. The score was also beside the point. Somewhere in that ballroom, five people who were kids together stood in a line and looked at their friend. That’s the whole review.
More reality TV news at CelebnMusic247.com.
Sources: Entertainment Weekly | USA Today | Entertainment Weekly
