VF.com just posted a new interview with Julia Stiles since she’s promoting It’s a Disaster, an end-of-the-world comedy (nope, not Seeking a Friend for the End of the World) directed by Todd Berger (coincidentally the name of the character that Andy Samberg plays in That’s My Boy, which opens today and looks abysmal).
Anyway. What happened to Julia Stiles’s career? She was supposed to be the Next Big Thing after 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) and Save the Last Dance (2001). I mean, sure, she was on Dexter for awhile, but who isn’t on TV these days?
VF.com was nice enough to let the actress comment on her absence in The Bourne Legacy, a remake/reimagining/sequel/whateverthefuck of the wildly successful Bourne franchise that starred Matt Damon. If you remember (and you probably don’t), Julia had a very minor role as Treadstone technician Nicky Parsons, whose role was slightly expanded with each installment in the trilogy but is absent in the upcoming Legacy, which stars Jeremy Renner:
I certainly think [Nicky’s storyline] could have been explored more, but I don’t really have any control or say in that… My character doesn’t really fit into the fourth of the series because she was so closely linked to Matt Damon’s version of Jason Bourne that it would have been forcing it a little too much to include her. I’m not exactly sure what happens in this one, but when you change the identity—I think she was just too closely tied to Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne.
Translation: I would’ve died to be in this movie and delay my inevitable destiny in cable television, but my character got cut.
Frankly, I thought that her role as Nicky was pretty insignificant. According to somebody who edited the Wikipedia entry for The Bourne Ultimatum, “It is implied that Parsons and Bourne had a deep, possibly romantic relationship before he lost his memory.” Uh, that’s ridiculous because in the first film, she was like 18, and in the second, she confirmed to Joan Allen that her cover was an American student studying in Paris.
Anyway. I’m still happy for this 10 Things alum to still be finding work. Heath Ledger won a posthumous Academy Award, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s career is thriving… I’m still waiting for Alex Mack’s career to reach the stratospheric levels that it deserves!