Stiles & Substance

She’s been a millennial rom-com favourite and a smart action heroine, but Julia Stiles’ latest role might be her best yet. Lucy Pavia talks tequila, Trump and a Riviera romance with this very understated star.

- Lucy Pavia

Julia Stiles is describing what sounds like the best cinema trip of all time. The film was Magic Mike and her movie buddies were her friend, actress Amber Tamblyn, and comedienne Amy Schumer. It was the first time Stiles and Schumer had met. ‘I had so much fun,’ says Stiles. ‘She brought a flask of tequila, and we were throwing popcorn at the screen and shouting from the back.’

The cinema date led to Stiles doing a cameo on Inside Amy Schumer last year (a rude and funny skit called ‘Pussy Painting’), but in the main the 36-year-old New Yorker isn’t known for taking laugh-a-minute roles. After those millennial nostalgia-inducing turns in 10 Things I Hate About You and Save The Last Dance, she was cast as Nicky Parsons in the thinking person’s action franchise Bourne – a part she would return to over the next 14 years – took a Golden Globe-nominated role as Lumen Ann Pierce in crime thriller series Dexter and starred with Jennifer Lawrence in Hollywood Oscar magnet Silver Linings Playbook. Perhaps because of this, I’m (unfairly) expecting her to make quite a serious interviewee, but when we meet for lunch at a south London restaurant, she’s relaxed and quick-witted, greeting me in a red Burberry trench, her dark blonde hair pinned up, enthusing about the food in the south of France, where she’s just been filming.