Julia Stiles
Born: March 28 1981
Where: New York, USA
One of Hollywood's more cerebral young stars, Stiles is as equally at home with Shakespeare as she is with rom-com fare like A Guy thing.
A native of Manhattan, she began her career onstage aged nine, appearing in plays with the famed La Mama Theatre troupe and the Kitchen Theatre.
Her film career began with a small part in I Love You, I Love You Not in 1996, followed by a turn as the daughter of New York police officer Harrison Ford in the thriller The Devil's Own.
She made a distinct impression at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival in her breakthrough role, as a precocious teen with a father fixation, in Michael Steinberg's dark comedy Wicked.
She also co-wrote the original screenplay The Anarchist's Daughter, which was chosen as one of 12 scripts included in the Sundance Institute's Writer's Lab.
Graduating from the Professional Children's School in 1999, Stiles went on to star in the teen comedy-drama 10 Things I Hate About You, a re-working of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.
Two of her other projects were also loosely based on Shakespeare's works, a modern-day adaptation of Hamlet, with Ethan Hawke and Bill Murray and the well received "O", a teen version of Othello.
Stiles earned critical praise for Patrick Stettner's The Business of Strangers opposite Stockard Channing.
A featured role in Doug Liman's take on the Robert Ludlum bestseller The Bourne Identity would return the actress to the limelight in 2002 and she next co-starred with Jason Lee in the much lighter A Guy Thing.
She starred in the ensemble drama Mona Lisa Smile with Kirsten Dunst and Julia Roberts and the forgettable rom-com The Prince & Me.
Recent work includes reprising her role for the excellent sequel The Bourne Supremacy alongside Matt Damon.
