With a number of high-profile projects, a variety of magazine covers, and a spot on Teen People's 1999 The 21 Hottest Stars Under 21 list under her belt, actress Julia Stiles has come a remarkably long way in a very short time. Born March 28, 1981, in New York City, Stiles was interested in performing from a very young age. When she was 11 years old, she wrote a letter to a Manhattan theater director asking to be cast in a production, and was soon acting onstage in avant-garde plays at both the La Mama and Kitchen Theaters.
In the film adaptation of novelist Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity (2002), Stiles had the chance to participate in a film starring Hollywood golden boy Matt Damon, and will return to the role in 2004's The Bourne Supremacy. Stiles was praised for holding her own against Stockard Channing in The Business of Strangers (2001), which was shown at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, and fared decently in A Guy Thing, a romantic comedy-of-errors co-starring Jason Lee and Stiles' fellow Down to You alumna Selma Blair. In 2003, Stiles would play opposite the Oscar-winning Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile, which finds Stiles playing a conservative 1950's college student whose beliefs undergo some serious scrutiny after coming in contact with an uncharacteristically progressive teacher (Roberts).