Julia Stiles Makes Directorial Debut with Film ‘Wish You Were Here’

Julia Stiles is pretty sure she mentioned here and there that she was interested in directing, but how exactly Gabby Kono-Abdy came to know that remains a bit of a mystery.

In the midst of the pandemic Stiles received an Instagram message from Kono-Abdy saying she’d heard Stiles was interested in directing and wondered if she’d considered the book “Wish You Were Here.”

“I think she was a fan of my work as an actress,” Stiles recalls. “She was 25 at the time I think, and she just is one of those remarkable young women who was very determined and had a vision and was like, ‘I think you should look into this.’”

Soon a formal letter from Kono-Abdy, herself an actress, landed with Stiles’ agents, saying how much she believed in her to direct. As soon as she read the book, Stiles knew she had finally found her directorial debut. 

“I was immediately struck by it,” says Stiles, who also adapted the screenplay. “I had been looking for a project to direct for a while, and couldn’t find the right story, but then this book just spoke to me. I had a visceral reaction to it. I laughed, I cried. I laughed through my tears, and I could see it as a movie. I could visualize it, and that was the catalyst for going ‘OK, now’s the time. This is the movie I want.’”

“Wish You Were Here,” based on the book by the same name by Renée Carlino, follows a young woman named Charlotte who meets a handsome mystery man one night outside her apartment; after a whirlwind night together, she learns the next day that he is terminally ill, and decides to stay by his side through the coming days. The film stars Isabella Fuhrman and Mena Massoud as the star-crossed couple, and Jennifer Grey and Kelsey Grammer as Charlotte’s parents. In a full circle moment, Kono-Abdy plays Helen, Charlotte’s roommate and best friend.

“I was drawn to the love story, and I thought one thing that Renée did that was really clever was there were these moments of humor and levity that kind of pull you in, and then before you know it, it’s a tragic love story,” Stiles, who is 43, says. “I love how the main characters are very young, but the love story is very mature and touches on issues like mortality that resonate a lot deeper than just a story about love at first sight.”

At the time Stiles was working with Fuhrman on their movie “Orphan: First Kill,” and while “I definitely was focused on my job as an actress,” she found herself with a lot of free time between takes given the COVID-19 precautions around the film, during which she’d work on adapting the book. Fuhrman was in nearly every scene of “Orphan,” and Stiles was impressed with her stamina. 

“I was watching her thinking, ‘Oh my God, she’s so talented,’” she says. 

Best known for starring in late ’90s and early 2000s teen dramas like “10 Things I Hate About You” and “Save the Last Dance,” Stiles has been wanting to try her hand at directing for years now.

“I think it’s being a passenger on a long car trip for so many hours, and then you finally get your own driver’s license,” she says. “I love acting and I love performing, but I’ve been doing it for 25 years. I’ve been in on those conversations, blocking rehearsals and where to put the camera, and I wanted to be in the driver’s seat.”

One movie in, she’s “hooked” on directing and would love to do a musically driven story next, or something comedic.

“I felt like all of a sudden, my experience as an actress all makes sense,” she says of directing. “Somebody asked me what I want to do as an actress or a director, and I feel like finally, after all these years, I’ve figured out that I just want to make people feel something.”