It’s fun living like royalty

At 23, Julia Stiles has starred in a wide range of movies. Her roles in teen favorites such as Save the Last Dance and 10 Things I Hate About You have earned her a spot in the hearts of the MTV Gen-X crowd, while more serious performances in The Business of Strangers and Mona Lisa Smile show how dedicated she is to her job. Julia says she measures her success by paying attention to the movies people credit her with, rather than focusing on which films make the most money at the box office.

Her next romantic film is The Prince and Me, where she plays Paige Morgan, a University of Wisconsin senior with aspirations of going to a top medical school and traveling the world as a goodwill pediatrician. Her life turns upside down when she meets and falls in love with a cool-headed foreign exchange student from Denmark, Eddie (Luke Mably). Little does she know Eddie is actually the Prince of Denmark. So will she choose to accept her fairy tale fate when he pops the question?

During a cool, breezy spring afternoon in her hometown of New York City, Julia talked about the film, her crazy college life at Columbia and others.

What was it about the character of Paige that you could identify with?

I liked how she was the anti-Cinderella. I like Cinderella stories but I never really thought I was waiting to find my Prince Charming or to have Prince Charming sweep me off my feet. I like it that my character wasn’t either. But the romantic side of me liked the idea that she had to stop trying to control her life and live according to a plan. She had to take risks and open herself up to the possibility of being with the man she loves.

As an actress, are you used to being treated like royalty?

I don’t think actors or celebrities are like American royalty. I really think there is a difference. Prince Charles has somebody who knows exactly what he’s going to be doing up to the minute for the next two years of his life. Everything is scheduled. For me, this was a choice and a career for me to pursue and I love it. I feel incredibly fulfilled by it so if there is anything at all that is slightly annoying or makes me uncomfortable, I know it’s because I chose to be an actor. Royalty is born into the situation. They have no choice.

How was it working with Luke Mably?

It was really great. He’s a really unpredictable actor but in a good way. Meaning every take is different so I felt like I really had to pay attention. It was really fun and we had a great time.

You did three movies (10 Things I Hate About You, Hamlet, O) based on Shakespeare stories. In this movie, your character is struggling to understand his language. Is it a coincidence that a lot of your projects have this tie-in with Shakespeare?

I think that he seized on something. Obviously, these stories he writes about get told over and over again. I think there’s that old phrase that there are five stories that get told over and over again. He covered it. There’s Romeo & Juliet – romances. There’s power and deceit in all of his history plays and then there are the comedies. I don’t think it’s me. I just think it’s very easy to adapt to his plays.

So are you graduating from Columbia soon?

It’s not really that soon. (Laughs) I have a year left but I deferred this semester to do a play so I don’t know when I’m going to graduate.

Why did you decide to go to college as well even though you have such a strong film career?

So many reasons. My reasons for starting school are different from the reasons I decided to stay in school. Initially, I just wanted to have the college experience of being with my peers and seeing what that was like. College is sort of that place to grow up in, in a safe environment. So I thought that was really important to do, especially with this overwhelming thing of being in the movies. But I’m lucky because I love acting and when I’m not working, Columbia is really accommodating about me getting in a semester. It’s good to have that change.

Is there anything you wish you knew at 13 that you know now?

I wish I had known at 13 that it’s really true when you shave your legs, they get ‘hairier’! At 13, I thought it was such a rite of passage to be shaving your legs like a grown-up and then you keep having to do it. It’s a pain in the ass.

What would you be doing if you weren’t acting?

Crying.

And if you could have one superhero power, what would you choose and why?

Oooh. I’d want to be able to fly. Fly without a plane.

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It’s one thing to be a leading man in a Julia Stiles movie but it’s another to play the prince of a European country. Luckily, Luke Mably pulls it off quite nicely.

The European top model (from England) stars in Paramount’s The Prince and Me, where he plays Prince Edvard, the prince of Denmark. Wild, reckless, and the subject of tabloid fodder, Edvard has trouble accepting his role as the future King of Denmark.

In an attempt to meet wild and crazy American girls, he travels to America to enroll in the University of Wisconsin as a regular college student and not the prince of Denmark. Here, he meets Paige (Julia Stiles), a beautiful, career-focused bookworm who dreams of going to John Hopkins Medical School someday. They fall in love. But how will Paige deal with Edward’s fairy tale secret?

Here’s what Luke Mably says about his first major starring role.

The movie is divided into two parts, with Prince Edvard trying to learn the ways of America and Paige going to Denmark to learn the ways of royalty. Have you ever felt like a fish out of the water?

I did. You don’t have it over here but it’s secondary school. It’s like high school and I went in as a first year student. We decided it wasn’t right for me at this school. I decided to change into a new school. I remember the first time I got there, we had a uniform in London. I had the wrong uniform accidentally and all the kids laughed. I can relate to that.

Prince Edvard constantly questions his role in life. Growing up, were you always set on being an actor or did you also consider other career paths?

From an early age, it was never "I want to be an actor, this is all I want to do." I wasn’t quite sure. I was trying lots of things out. My first interest (in film) I suppose, was when I was about eight or nine and I had a good friend whose father brought home the first version of a video camera. We were let loose with it for a weekend. We were eight or nine year old kids so we started making these terrible horror films with tomato sauce and white sheets to pretend to be ghosts.

I remember really enjoying that and the whole creative side of it. I took drama school after, and the whole time, it was just fun. I remember enjoying doing it — being different people or dressing up in costumes. But I started taking it really seriously when I got into drama school in London and it was a three-year training. From there, I’ve been on a mission I guess.

How was the training to learn how to behave like a prince and act proper? Do you have respect now for Prince William?

Absolutely. With Prince William, I did read a lot of books about him. I tried to get as much video footage as I could on him. But I didn’t just base it on Prince William. There are parts of me in it and parts of other people. I sympathize with Prince William. I didn’t know this stuff about him. He’s born into a life of rules, regulations, protocols, and traditions.

You have to sympathize with him. It doesn’t seem like much of a fun life to live in this bubble and have all these decisions made for you.

What was the most fun part about filming the movie?

Lots of stuff. I think, generally, I’m a typical guy so I think a lot of the car chasing was a lot of fun. I had to work closely with the stunts on that and make sure I knew what I was doing. The stunts did some of it as well. Horse riding was fun too. A horse is a very temperamental animal.

As an actor still on the rise, how was it working with a more seasoned actor like Julia Stiles?

It was brilliant. She’s wonderful, very hard working, and a very professional actor. She takes it very seriously. I really respect that in her and she’s a lot of fun to be around. I learned a lot from her. It was kind of my first big role in a movie so she was very supportive of me and helped me through a lot of it.

If you became a prince yourself, what would be the first law you’d enforce?

First law? It sounds really cliché but it would be to solve the homeless (situation) in London at the moment. It’s just really terrible. If I were prince for a day, I’d give the money to people who needed it more.