Julia Stiles Joins 'Dancing With the Stars' and Millennial Nostalgia Follows

Julia Stiles, 45, has become an unexpected fan favorite on "Dancing With the Stars," 25 years after "Save the Last Dance" cemented her internet reputation as a dancer she never was.

Critics often praise a dancer's star quality. Julia Stiles is a star with dancer quality.

Why does everyone think Stiles can dance?

She can't, in any serious way. Stiles has never danced professionally. But certain corners of the internet seem unable to admit that. Years of memes have indelibly linked her with Sara Johnson, the Juilliard-bound dancer she played in the 2001 film "Save the Last Dance." The confusion has a factual kernel: she did do some of her own dancing in the movie, but she also had dance doubles. Add her long limbs and elegant posture, and she simply looks like a dancer.

How is she playing with it on the show?

As a contestant this season, Stiles has playfully engaged with the "is she or isn't she" confusion — and channeled the powerful millennial nostalgia for her early-career movies. Her routine last week recreated, almost step-for-step, the famous audition scene from "Save the Last Dance," with its awkward yet endearing blend of ballet and hip-hop (the film's heroine trains in both styles while auditioning for a conservatory program).

During Tuesday's "Dedication Night" episode, Stiles paid poignant tribute to Heath Ledger, her co-star in the 1999 cult classic "10 Things I Hate About You" — and got many of the film's other leads, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Gabrielle Union, to join her onstage.

What does her partner say?

It's rare for "Dancing With the Stars" to attract a star of Stiles's wattage. The show is hard, humbling work. Stiles, who has kept her personal life private and has been selective about her acting projects since her early-aughts boom, doesn't have an obvious reason to seek the disco-dappled spotlight of the ballroom. That's the puzzle the season presents.

The dancer Ezra Sosa, Stiles's professional partner on the show, said in a video interview that Stiles had jumped all the way in. He described her as "down for anything," including engaging with her early-career movies. That, evidently, is the whole strategy: lean into the memes, honor the filmography, let the audience have its rerun.

The wager seems sound. A star with nothing to prove, proving it anyway, is precisely the spectacle the ballroom sells — and the season is still airing.