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A New Triple Threat
even on broadway, julia stiles ranks at the top of her class
PrintIn the new Broadway production of David Mamet’s “Oleanna,” a professor purports that there are three reasons to pursue higher education, among them mastery of a craft and economic betterment. While her acting career was already flourishing by the time she entered the 116th Street gates, the star of the play—and Columbia College alumna—Julia Stiles, CC ’05, pursued higher education for the professor’s number one reason.
“I was going for the love of learning, and I do think there is something very valid about going to school for the experience, for a liberal arts education where you are going to learn,” proposes Stiles. “To go for kind of a basic knowledge, but also to learn how to think, as they say, and also how to grow up.”
While her latest endeavor—Stiles’ Broadway debut—directly questions the purpose of higher education through the onstage power struggle between an Ivy League professor, John (played by Drama Desk Award-nominated Bill Pullman), and his student, Carol (played by Stiles), Stiles describes Columbia as “exactly what I needed.”
“It was the perfect kind of education for me, too. I needed more of a classical education,” reflects Stiles as she carefully adjusts her linen neck scarf. Stiles praises the Core, saying that it was different than anything she had experienced academically prior to graduating from New York’s Professional Children’s School in 1999. “I think I had some catching up to do when I was a freshman, and I got to John Jay first, and everyone was talking about how they had read the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Odyssey’ in high school already, or over the summer,” she says. “I felt like I had missed a memo.”
But Stiles caught up soon enough. She reminisces about her Core classes as a smile stretches over her face: “It was just so amazing. I mean, I sound like a brochure from Columbia but … it was just so memorable.”
In retrospect, Columbia was the perfect fit for the actress—but she didn’t always see herself here. “I had this idea in my head—I insisted, when I was applying for colleges, on leaving the city, because I grew up in New York City,” she says. Thankfully, her college advisor and teacher, a graduate of the epic class of ’68, convinced her otherwise: “He kept pushing me and pushing me and saying, ‘You have to go visit Columbia,’ ‘You’ll love it, you’ll love it,’ ‘Just please apply, please apply,’ and he was totally right.”
Stiles decided to stay in the city and ended up deferring for a year, entering college in the fall of 2000. She continued to act professionally while in school, taking off a semester here and there. Though she never acted in any Columbia productions—“I was too scared to do any theater at Columbia”—she did film “Mona Lisa Smile” while she was a student. “I think just for my own life, they were really complementary, being able to work and go to school,” she says.
Despite her fame, Stiles maintained a fairly typical Columbia experience: complaining about papers, moving to a Ruggles suite for her sophomore year, cheering on friends in the Varsity Show, and hanging out on campus to find her niche in the Columbia community.
Coincidentally, Julia chose a major—English literature—that ultimately helped her foster a necessary acting skill. “I think what I was trying to do with my major was, if I was going to have to do this much reading it should be reading novels,” she says. “I love words and etymology and novels, and it does translate to acting … in terms of analysis of texts.”
But Stiles’ education was purposefully meant to deviate from her life as an actor. Looking back, Stiles realizes, “If you think in a strategic, career-minded way, it maybe wasn’t very good for my career.” Then again, as she adds bluntly, “But I don’t really care.”
Just as the liberal arts education Columbia provided was exactly what Julia needed back in 2000, her Broadway debut is exactly what her acting career demands in 2009. Stiles emits an aura of equanimity and talent, whether in the casual setting of her unassuming dressing room or onstage in the throes of a violent power struggle.
While Stiles is best known for her film work—specifically all-time favorite teen flick “10 Things I Hate About You” and the gripping “Bourne” series—she got her start in live theater at age 11. The transition from the unpredictable, fast-paced nature of filmmaking to the steady routine of 45th Street can present a challenge, but the actress has become fond of the idiosyncrasies of Broadway culture. “I love the sort of ritual part of theater,” says Stiles, “which is that after a certain hour during the day I kind of have to start focusing on the play. And then an hour before the show Bill and I practice the fight … and then I start thinking about the emotional aspect.”
Though “Oleanna” is only an hour and a half long, the three-act, two-person drama thrusts the audience and its actors into an emotional tempest. It follows John, a professor of education, as he attempts to console and teach his emotionally distraught student, Carol. The two stutter and cut each other off in bouts of frustration for most of the first act, emphasizing a fundamental inability to communicate.
The second and third acts propel their interaction into zones of dangerous misunderstanding, driving home one of the professor’s statements: “We can only interpret the behavior of others through the screens we create.” According to Carol, her professor inappropriately manipulated his power and authority. John believes that he has comforted and forged a personal connection with his hysterical pupil. A he-said she-said debate escalates, culminating in an explosive ending.
Stiles presses that her favorite aspect of live theater lies in its rawness, which makes “Oleanna”’s intensity a perfect match for her. “It’s almost like a yoga class where you have to, you know, relax your body, but also be not thinking about the end of the play ... but taking it one step at a time and experiencing it,” she explains.
“With a movie … you very rarely get wrapped up in an experience where you’re not self-conscious anymore because there’s a camera in front of you, because you’re just doing one scene that’s part of a bigger picture, and then there’s a lot of stopping and starting and waiting around,” she rushes. “Whereas with a play”—she pauses and leans in, resting her chin on her fist like a woman remembering her first kiss—“especially with a play like this … you’re not thinking about the lines or how you’re supposed to express something. … You’re actually thinking about the other person.”
In this case, that “other person” is Bill Pullman, to whom Stiles partially credits her stellar and provocative performance. “I’m in really good hands,” Stiles says. “I’ve learned so much from Bill nightly, and he challenges me to be a better actress. I feel that I have a responsibility when I get up onstage to be there for him, too.”
Stiles also treasures the depth of Mamet’s material. Knowing her literary background, her interest in the mechanics of language and the interpretation of truth is not surprising. Stiles dissects the language of her lines, saying, “He [Mamet] is very deliberate about pauses and the spacing of his text … it’s almost like a musical score.”
But she also disagrees with the playwright in some respects. Though Mamet famously doesn’t believe in back story, Stiles does. “To make a play rich, more rich, you gotta make these fully formed beings,” Stiles asserts. “So yeah, I do create a back story for Carol.” Stiles possesses an unrelenting attention to detail, which infuses her portrayal of Carol’s obsession with specificity.
Stiles’s high standards for herself reflect the pressure of Broadway status. She appreciates that audiences make a deliberate, expensive choice to see a Broadway play, as opposed to the more casual nature of going to see a movie. As the actress notes, “New York audiences are not as easily charmed. We definitely have to earn our stay here.” Luckily, that pressure doesn’t frighten Stiles—she adds determinedly, “I like that challenge.”
Stiles continues, saying, “I really do love live theater because I feel like that’s the most challenging and rewarding, purely because you get the immediate reaction of the audience.” And Stiles certainly provokes a reaction in “Oleanna”: audience members audibly gasp and even shout at her during performances. She interprets these responses as confirmation that she is doing her job as an actress.
While Carol possesses an unrelenting quality that often upsets audience members, one must wonder if this relentlessness originates in Stiles herself. At 28, Stiles holds the title of acting success—stage and screen—and Ivy grad. Her intellectual prowess, modest self-awareness and determined commitment render her a different kind of triple threat. While “Oleanna” is all about differing perceptions, Julia Stiles renders it nearly impossible for anyone to see her as anything but an impressive woman.
15 October 2009
vol. 7, issue 5
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