10 Things I Hate About You: Everything You Didn't Know

Your list-living Lotharios are back with an episode that's just too good to be true. Get ready to dive deep into this crown jewel of the late '90s teen movie boom. You'll learn all about the alternate leads we nearly saw instead of Heath Ledger, the songs he nearly sang instead of Frankie Valli, what exactly was behind those tears when Julia Stiles recited the titular poem, and the on-set romance that will blow your minds. Jordan sounds off on why teen movies from this era are just so damn good, Alex opines on all the ways the band Letters to Cleo nearly died by performing on the roof, and together they speculate on the uncompleted sequel that's been tied up in legal hell for over a decade. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to another episode of Too Much Information, the
show that brings you the secret facts and little alone
history behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more.
We are your heinous bitches of hay giography, your updated

(00:22):
Shakespeare's sagas of up to date details, your list loving
the tharios of all things pop culture. There are some
who say which is too good to be true? My
name is Jordan run Tug. That's a good one. I
was with you the whole way. Hi, thank you. I'm
Alex Heigel, and today we are talking about one of
the crown jewels of the late nineties string of stellar

(00:43):
teen comedies, Ten Things I Hate About You. This modern
update of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, a name that
did not age well charmed audiences and critics alike when
it was released at the end of March nineteen ninety nine,
twenty five years ago. It made ours out of Julia
Styles and Heath Ledger and birth some iconic cinematic moments

(01:04):
that live in the hearts of millennials and any discerning
sin East really forever. Although I generally preferred my teen
movies to be more of the early sixties Frankie and
Annette variety. I did catch the batch that came out
during this era. Can't Hardly Wait, American Pie, Clueless, She's
All That my personal favorite, and of course this one.
We really we were spoiled with these. We were growing

(01:27):
up great run there. While you and I were slightly
younger than the characters in these movies, for me, they
were almost aspirational in a sense. They offered an idea
of what was on the horizon when I graduated middle
school and made it to the big leagues of high school,
where I remained as weird and dorky as ever. Higer,
what do you think of ten things I heard about you?

(01:48):
You know, my memories of this said teen Boob are
mostly of me trying to see boobs in movies, So
anything that wasn't like a hard r was kind of
an out for me that surprises me. I could see
you being being into the high jinks of this move.
Oh my gosh, No really, no, is it too sweet? Yes,
if I wanted high jinks at this time, I would

(02:09):
have gone to Jackie Chan or do them yourself.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, yeah, for sure, I mean Jackass was going around
at this point.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Okay, that is true. That is true. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
I obviously I have I love sweet baby Heath Ledger
and this he's he's just adorable. But I've never really
been the world's biggest Julius Styles fan, and I think
I was just like residual crushing on lariso Olnik from
the Secret World of Alex Mack And oh of course, yeah,
it doesn't really go any further than that for me.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
I mean, to be fair to everybody listening right now,
I sprung this on High Goal like maybe three hours
ago that we were doing this. Oh yeah, I had
a lot, so I had a change of plan over
the weekend. I read tenth Scait about you instead of
I believe Frank Sinatra's My Way was what we were
kind of to So it's quite the a bad face. Yeah, no,
I'm sorry. So you were handling this like a champ,

(03:02):
I have to say.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I again again, it's like
pretty much anything I say about this time period is
that like, given the current state of Hollywood and in
particular like the low mid budget comedy, like if you
just go back to this era and you're like, wow,
this was shot on film with like real sets and
real wardrobe, and it's not a grade out mess like
real people with no blocking and like nothing that used

(03:24):
to make things a movie. And you're just like, wow, okay,
I forgot there used to be craft in this. It
just wasn't an assembly line feeding slop into a streaming
outlet trough.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
And that's the weird thing too, because I mean not
to sounds like I'm big upping myself or like an
old man yelling at a cloud. In the nineties when
these movies are being made, I was really into watching
stuff from the fifties and sixties, and I remember thinking
in the nineties, wow, this is crap compared to like
what I like to watch from back then. So now
it's doubly humbling to revisit these shows from my childhood

(03:57):
now and be like, oh, they're better than I remember.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Just this isn't aside where the fifties it's still like
an arrow when they were getting like Faulkner to write
this stuff or like Grandma. Okay, so there were like
you know, it was being written by like famous novelists.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Like Scott Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood. Yeah, before he died.
I mean, well, great, well a quick reminder for those
who haven't seen Ten Things They Hit about You in
a while. Much like American Pie and She's all that.
The plot centers around a bet, a bet or a wager.
A wait, yeah, a wager, A deal, a deal? What
kind of make a little deal an agreement? I guess.

(04:36):
I guess American Pie wasn't really a bet. It was
more of an agreement, sort of a gentleman's handshake german's
handshake situation. The story of Ten Things I Hate About
You follows two sisters, Bianca and her elder sister Kat. Bianca,
who's played by Larisa Alenik are beloved Alex Mack from
Nickelodeon Fame, wants to begin dating, but her father will

(04:57):
not allow it until Cat starts dating as well. So
Bianca's suitor, a John Hughes Battie esque type named I
think his character is Joey Donner, pays the school loaner
played by Heath Ledger to try to woo the ill tempered,
anti social Cat played by Julia Styles, thus clearing the
way for him to start dating Bianca and Hilaritian SEUs.

(05:21):
I guess going over this. Now, this is obviously this
plot is Shakespeare's Tending of the Shrew. I don't think
I realized until researching this episode that part of the
reason that so many of these late nineties teen movies
hold up is because their plots are revamps of classics
and are extremely durable. Clueless is Jane Austin's Emma, She's
all that is Pygmalion or My Fair Lady, take a pick.

(05:43):
I'm sure Twelfth Night one that's She's the Man. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So I guess it makes sense that these movies are
holding up as well as I did, because not only
have they held up for twenty five years, they've held
up for centuries well. From the alternate leads we nearly
saw instead of Heath Ledger and the songs he nearly
sang instead of Frankie Valley, to the complex torn of

(06:06):
emotions behind Julia Styles tears as she recited the titular
poem Here's everything you didn't know about Ten Things I
Hate about You Ten Things I had about You came
from the minds of first time writers Kristin Smith and
Karen McCullough. They would go on to become teen movie

(06:28):
writing royalty writing classic female driven rom coms like Legally Blonde,
Ella Enchanted, the aforementioned She's the Man, and the House Bunny.
I'll over run there. Wow. But it all started with
Ten Things Desperate to break into the industry. They were
inspired by the success of nineteen ninety five's Clueless, in
which Amy Heckerling took the plot of Jane Austen's Emma

(06:50):
and said it in a nineteen nineties high school I
have to be honest, I had no idea that Clueless
was an adaptation of Jane Austin. Yeah, I did you.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
I mean, I think it was pointed out to me
at the time, but I certainly hadn't read Emma at
that point. Yeah forever, respectfully, did you ever have.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Those great illustrated classics books as a kid? Yep. I
always assumed that that was like the real version of
the book. And then years later I read Emma. Yeah,
And then I realized. I got to high school and
I was like, oh, what are these words? Oh damn it,
I was so I was like really upset. I was
so proud of myself. It was a real point of
pride that I just crush all these books. It should

(07:33):
have been a tip off. They were all two hundred
and thirty eight pages. I should that should have been
that all great works of literature weren't mysteriously the same
page count, But it didn't. Didn't dawn on me. Yeah, anyway,
Karen McCollough explained in a twenty fifteen interview with The
Script Lab. We knew we wanted to write a teen movie,
and when Clueless came out, we thought Amy Heckerling was
a genius for contemporizing a classic, so we decided to

(07:55):
try that as well. Their thoughts turned to Shakespeare because
it worked for West Side Story and The Lion King
a few years earlier and Kissed Me Kate, And I
don't know. The bas Lerrman version of Romeo and Juliet
was probably big around that time too, in the mid nineties,
So I don't know Shakespeare Sigar chopping executive Shakespeare. I

(08:17):
heard good things now. So they opted for the Taming
of the Shrew, and they would return to the Shakespeare
well for She's the Man, which you mentioned earlier, which
was a revamp of Twelfth Night. But Caola continued to
the Script Lab, we chose Taming of the Shrew and
figured out which storylines they wanted to keep an update

(08:37):
and how we'd go about it, And then we outlined
all the characters and the story while we sat on
a beach in Mexico. Yeah, not a bad place for
first time writers to bang out an outline. Let me
tell you, nodds to Shakespeare and his works are sprinkled
throughout the final version of Ten Things I Hate About You.
We'll touch on more of that later. For instance, there's

(08:59):
the character Mandela, who's obsessed with the play right and
ultimately receives a Shakespeare inspired prom posal in the film,
which is funny because I thought the promposals were like
a social media phenomenon. I didn't know that they would
go that far back. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
God, I think my girlfriend at the time just like
looked at each other and like, fine, that's my prom poosel.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
I was too shy to ask the person I wanted
to ask, so I asked her sister instead, and some
weird gats bisque attempt to make her jealous. I don't
know why I did that. I was friends with their sister,
I should say, in fact, yeah, okay, okay, yeah, but
it was a friend date.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
But yeah, this is good. This episode's going to drag
up a lot of feelings.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
I was gonna say, yea, all the high school stuff,
I wasn't thinking about it. And somebody somebody in the
comments that they don't like when we go off, and
there are sad personal anecdotes. But you know what, the
Saint your Knight baby uh. Getting back to Shakespeare In
Ten Things They Heard About You, there are character names
and location names and even a few direct quotes thrown
in to nod to his work. So the plot of

(10:06):
Ten Things I Hate About You is inspired by the Barge,
but the title comes from real life, stripped from the headlines, yes,
or the diary more like. Once the pair of writers
decided they were going to tackle a script set in
high school, Karen McCullough decided to read through her high
school diaries for an authentic blast of teen angst, and
that's when she stumbled on an angry entry she'd written

(10:28):
about her then boyfriend Anthony. She shared this with her
collaborator Kristen Smith, who immediately said, that's our title. The
name of this entry was ten Things I Hate about Anthony,
and the working title for the script was actually ten
Things I Had about Andy a slight name change to
protect the guilty until they ultimately tweaked it to the

(10:49):
second person. How hard do you.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Think they kicked themselves when they got a percentage of
the way through shooting without realizing that they were one
word off of like a naming like a riff on
ten Things I Hate about You, like a sorry the
Taming of the Shrew Ten Things I Hate about You
having like the same rhythm and scanchon, Like do you
think it was like a big light bulb boom and
for everyone in one room or someone just quietly noticed

(11:10):
and was like, I'm gonna make this call.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
I didn't notice that until you just said it right now.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Really, however, it was completely deliberate from the Things I
Hate about You The Taming of the Shrew.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
It's kind of forced, but it's not bad. Well, what
I mean, what isn't in Hollywood tweeted us about is
this title? He forced truly styles on us? Oh what
do you like about her? She's wooden? Really not a
good actress? Really?

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Maybe it's just say the last dance because like, even
as a child, I looked at that and was like,
this is problematic with like a preternatural understanding of what
that word meant.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Well. On a happier note, Karen mccolluugh remained friends with
her ex Anthony, and he was apparently very flattered that
he helped inspire cinematic greatness. In fact, he would often
ring up Karen McCollough to confirm the story to doubting
friends and relatives. McCalla said, I'll get a random phone
call in the middle of the night. Hey, my nephew
doesn't believe the titles about me. Tell him, and so

(12:16):
I'm on the phone, like, yes, I hated Anthony in
high school and probably right now he's calling me at
all hours.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Mcallaugh and Smith wrote the script on spec, which means
they had to shop it, and it ultimately wound up
in the hands of an exec at Touchstone and within
months or nanoseconds in Hollywood time, it was Greenland, which
is great for them, wonderful for a better time to
be working and alive as a professional. For director, Touchdown

(12:47):
turned to Gil Junger or Junger.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, and he's quite a character in this. I think
you're gonna like him, or at least like talking about him.
He's a do people say get me the junger going
for the jungular. Ooh, good mine.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
He takes his glasses off. He's like, looks like it's
time to go to the jungular.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Explosion in the background. Yeah. Yeah. Uh.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
He was a newbie featured director, and at that point
he had only done episodes of TV shows like Ellen,
Blossom and Two Guys, A Girl in a Pizza Place,
the Big Things. Even so, though he wasn't eager to
make his jump to the big screen with a teen
version of The Taming of the Shrew, regardless of whether
or not it rhymed. According to the film's production notes,
his initial response was absolutely not. He continued, I had

(13:36):
no interest in doing it tipicol high school film. I
wanted to do a romantic love story, but at the
urging of my agent, I read the script. I loved it.
The depth of it surprised me. It really is a
romantic love story. The plot is beautifully interwoven, and the
humor works because it comes from the characters. Yeah, man,
it's Shakespeare.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Fuck.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Glad you got glad you're approved of it. These beats
need work.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, this guy, get ready for this guy. You're gonna
have fun. You know. It's good, but I think we
can jung it up a little.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
He endeavored to make this film a cut above your
standard issue cheapy teen rom com, and some would say
that he did. He elaborated to HuffPo in twenty nineteen.
When I got hired to do the movie, which was
of course thrilling, I said, I'm not making a high
school movie. I look at this as a relationship movie
between two people that happened to be in high school,
because I want my forty something friends to come to
this movie and dig it. I refuse to make a

(14:33):
high school film in a condescending manner of any kind.
I just find the genre to be so derivative, said
the guy directing someone else's script that was an adaptation
of the Taming of the Shrew. When it came time
to cast the movie, director Gil Junger recalled being under
immense pressure from Disney Touchstones parent company to consider the
teens from Dawson's Creek, which was extremely popular at the time.

(14:56):
According to Gills retelling, he had the chutzpa the jungspa
you will to tell the studio heads, please just give
me the chance to cast this myself. I'll screen test them,
and you can either say yes or no, and to
his and the rest of Hollywood's shock, Disney agreed once again.
This was a first time director, coming from the Jim
Belushi sitcom.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
And Two Guys A Girl on the Pizza Plus.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Katie Holmes was indeed considered for the role of Katerina
kat Stratford, who is described uncharitably on Wikipedia as quote
the antisocial, shrewish elder Stratford's sister. No one seems to
know if she either didn't get the part or if
she turned it down. Eliza Douschku of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
also a pretty brunette and a Boston native, as was

(15:40):
a young pre almost famous in both the literal and
metaphorical sense. Kate Hudson, casting director, apparently loved Kate's audition,
but Hudson ultimately passed on the role, reportedly because her mother,
Goldie Hahn, didn't think it was.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
A good fit. Wasn't it the Thing?

Speaker 2 (15:55):
When Kurt Russell was like, up between two movies, Goldie
Hahn was like, you should do the Thing or Big Trouble.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
I think it was. I think it was Big Trouble.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, good for her.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, but It all worked out for Julia Styles because.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
It did because she was a good fit. She was
a good fit. A lot of people will talk about
this in auditions. They all basically told her to like
smile more and stuff, and so she felt a real connection,
real kinship to this character.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
Talking to Entertainment Weekly in twenty nineteen, Styles said she
was desperate to play Cat. It was so refreshing to
see a teenage girl who was so feisty. She added,
I thought that the writers had a healthy dose of
cynicism with their humor that she don't always find with
teen romantic comedies. She'd cite Ali Sheety in The Breakfast
Club and Molly Ringwalden Sixteen Candles as the character's spiritual ancestors,
as well as someone known a writer Rolls presumably Heather's

(16:49):
Not So Much Merits or bram Stoker's Dracula. Styles felt
a kinship with the character because she was more or
less told that she looked like a mean lady at all.
I was an auditioning actor, and mostly I would go
out for commercials and they would tell me that I
wasn't bubbly enough. They always thought I was angry. So
to read a part like Cat. I was like, ah,

(17:10):
this is perfect for me. Director Gil Junger also felt
it was perfect for Julia Stiles feeling as though he'd
knocked a young run or a home Jung feeling as
though he'd knocked a home Jung. I'm going to keep
these coming fast and heavy young in humor, as he

(17:32):
elaborated to Hofo, with the character of Cat, I just
wanted to say to kids, it's okay not to change
or just who you are to feel connected to everybody else. Basically,
don't behave in a way to make other people like you.
Behave in a way that's true to who you are.
To be honest. I always thought of it as a
female empowerment film. So when I met Julia, forget it.
She was exactly who Cat was. Just the way she

(17:53):
shook my hand. I was like, this isn't a girl.
This is a young woman. To take seriously, that's a
weird thing to say. She was seventeen, right, yes, yeah,
Miss Landy's character.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Note.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
In the original version of the script, Kat's mother was
supposed to be alive, but they decided to kill her
off to give Kat a quote reason for her attitude,
and because we a whittled down the call list.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
You're reading this like Bill Shatner. I like it.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Kat is seen reading The bell Jar in the movie,
a comically oversized prop version of The Bell Jar.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
How did you remember that?

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Because I've just ever seen someone put its screen grab
up at like love to grab my coffee table edition
of The Bell Jar and relax in my oversized armchair.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Styles Julius Styles.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Was later connected to a film version of The Bell
Jar That Never Got Mad, That Never Got Mad, wonderful.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
I say this with all love. You don't feel a
connection to somebody who's sick of people telling you you
seem sold down on grumpy? Why don't you smile more?
Life's beautiful, life's good, everything's good. Why don't you be happy?
Feel a real sense of solidarity? I am a better dancer.

(19:08):
I've never seen you dance actually, even when well, I
guess when you were fronting our band, that wasn't really
a dance. That was running to the back of the
bar and grabbing a shot in the middle of a
song and then coming back, which was impressive. I did
do that. I did do that.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
It was it was cool without missing a word. You
never did never did.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
You stuck me with all of the Heath Ledgers stuff. Okay,
I thought you might want the gravitas. In one of
the DVD extra features, director Gil Younger described the challenges
he faced while casting Patrick Verona. He made lead actor
in the film Verona sounds like a porn star name
Pat Verona, or just the worst guy you went to

(19:48):
high school with, fair Pat. I mean, yeah, Pat. Maybe
it's a New England thing, but yeah, Pat's run hot
and cold. In my experience, director Gil Junger described Patrick
Verona as a complicated role. He needed to be masculine
without trying to be masculine. He needed to be smart,

(20:10):
He needed to be removed, He needed to be unbelievably charming.
He said. They looked at hundreds of young actors, and
early standouts were Ashton Kutcher, who then was enjoying a
healthy Q score thanks to his role on that seventy show,
and also Josh Hartnett, who was in the midst of
filming The Virgin Suicides at that time. And what else
did he do? What was he faculty? Yeah? Was he

(20:32):
on a TV show? Hartnett?

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (20:34):
No, I don't think so, because like Halloween h two oh,
and faculty were some of his Like I think H
two oh might have been his first movie.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
I remember always hearing that name and seeing like posters
of him on like friends walls and stuff. But I
really knew what he did. Yeah, he's a he's a
sweet guy. Okay, I'll take your room for it.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Though he is expelled for writing a letter to the
dean of the Conservatory of Theater, Arts and Film at
the State University of New York had purchase Josh Hartnett. Yes, cool.
He said the college's evaluation system stifled students creativity and.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
They expelled him for it. Wow.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Good for him. Must have been a hell of a letter.
I want to read that. Yeah, an eighteen year old?
Is that on letters of note dot com? Oh man,
I'd buy that on heritage auctions. Josh Hartnett's letter to
the Dean of Sunny And.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
This concludes our Pelongsi Museum segment of the program.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, right there we go that in the prop version
of the Bell Job. If we can find that, I'm
going to.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Find that in time for your birthday in November. But
Ashton Kutcher and Josh Hartnett didn't have the raw magnetism
that this budding autocratic director was looking for, and then
in walked he Fledger director Gil Younger. Yes, I will
say his entire name and title throughout the remainder of

(21:58):
this episode. Would that Heath quote just had a presence
from the moment he walked in, and he was instantly
sure that he would be a movie star. Normally this
would sound like retrospective horse, but I believe him in
this case because it's a Pledger. Yeah, I mean, come on, yeah,
Junger recalled, thinking, if this dude can read, I'm going
to cast him.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
He's just so unique looking. Is that who he refers
to as handsome? Like classically handsome, unique, strong jawline and
beautiful hair like. He's so unique looking. He just looks
like Adonis.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
Junger added to viewmanity dot Com. Heath had never done
a movie, He'd done the least amount of work of
anyone on the cast, but he just exuded a sexuality
and charisma that was palpable. It was thrilling in the
initial reading, and the reading, it must be said, was
very short. They gave him eight pages to go through,

(22:54):
and barely a minute into the first page, they stopped
teeth and told him to put down the page and
poor he he took this as a bad thing. He
assumed to bomb the audition and he looked terrified, and
Gil Junger said, no, no, no, this is a very
good thing. I think you're a very talented guy, and
I just want to improv with you for a while.
Oh my god, this guy sucks. His quote continues. I

(23:15):
wanted to see how fascile his ability was to shift
attitudes and maybe play off some humor. And we did
that for about forty five seconds, and I said, okay,
thank you so much for coming in. And he looked
at me like, dude, I just flew here from Australia.
You're spending two minutes with me for a sixteen hour flight.

(23:38):
Heigel your thoughts.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Oh no, please read the next sentence.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Uh. Junger apparently placed the call to Heat's agent as
soon as he was out of the room. Continue Junger
recalled saying to the women on the production team, Ladies,
I've never wanted to sleep with a man, but if
I had to sleep with the man, that would be
the man. Please call him immediately. There it is. Can
we can we say that? I feel like you have

(24:05):
to read that like Matthew Berry and the things we
say in the Shadows, Ladies.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
I've never wanted to sleep with a man, but if
I had to sleep with a man, that would be
the man. Can we get up in the front of
a camera, please cast him immediately. He just exudes sexuality
and charisma.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Palpable, that's all right, good, very good. It sucks, man.
I thought I was.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
I was feeling bad for just like ragging on him earlier.
But the fact that he saw a bunch of like
teens and was like, what a piece.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Of ass he was a teeny?

Speaker 2 (24:36):
He's okay even still just being like, yeah, dude, man,
you exude sexuality. You want to do improv together? Did
you hang do you like to hang around men's locker room?

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Like?

Speaker 2 (24:50):
What the fuck? Man?

Speaker 1 (24:54):
I need? Like this guy? Oh boy?

Speaker 2 (24:57):
I guess you could say he liked him, Jung.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
I'm gonna regret reading what I wrote director Gil Junger's
crush on Heath Ledger. I wrote adorable, but I'm rethinking
that now is palpable to use his own words. They
tweaked the character bio for Patrick Verona to make him
Australian so that Heath could keep his natural accent, which

(25:27):
Junger felt made the character of Patrick quote dangerous and sexy.
I'm just hearing him with Matthew Berry now. Junger always
remembered the outfit that Heath wore on the first day
on the set, cracked olive green leather pants, topped off
with a white, worn out leather belt, some crazy pair

(25:50):
of white shoes, a hat, and who knows what shirt.
I looked at him and I thought to myself, if
I put on any one of those pieces of clothing,
everyone around me would burst out laugh before whatever reason
on Heath it was so cool. He could sell anything. Sure, man,
does it get better or worse? Same? Okay? Same continues, continues,

(26:14):
the pace continue. Yeah, actually no, it gets worse, but
not just with Heath. Oh.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
I bet he has thoughts on Larissa, doesn't he?

Speaker 1 (26:21):
No? No? Oh okay. Yeah. This was famously Heath Ledger's
first American movie, but he'd been a rising star in
his native Australia for a few years. He was mostly
known for roles in Australian TV series like Sweat Shipped,
a Shore, Roar and Home and Away Anyone, Anyone, Phil,
Front of the Pod, Phil or Resident favorite friend from

(26:43):
Southern Hemisphere, Phil, Please get in touch. Heath Ledgard appeared
in the nineteen ninety seven Australian feature film Black Rock,
but that was pretty much the extent of his filmography.
As a result, Touchstone got him cheap, reportedly shelling out
just one hundred thousand dollars. What would be Heath Ledger's
breakout role, and he threw himself into it with his
trademark gusto that would kind of kill him, yeah right, yeah.

(27:11):
In addition to improvising on set was his idea, for example,
to grab at the flame in the scene in the
science lab. He's literally playing with fire. Get it. He's like,
you know, yeah. He studied extensively for his part. He
drew inspiration from Richard Burton's nineteen sixty seven portrayal of

(27:31):
Petruccio The Tamming of the Shrew, character upon which his
role of Patrick Verona is based, and he also strove
to give quote a Jack Nicholson edge to him with
his cheekiness and his smiles, and Heath would famously revisit
his love of Jack Nicholson nearly a decade later when
he portrayed the Joker, a role Jack had originated on

(27:52):
the big screen and Tim Burton's nineteen eighty nine adaptation
of Your Beloved Batman. Another thing the Heath Ledger brought
to the role, supposedly, sources say, is his car. The
red nineteen sixty three Dodge Dart that Cat drives in
the film was reportedly heats, at least if various listicles
are to be believed. I had a hard time running

(28:13):
that down. I couldn't couldn't get the VIN number.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Do you think they paid him to Uh, they paid
it to ship it across the country.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Oh, man, I bought it. I need to think of
that ocean.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Or he just bought it in La. It's a very
la car. It's a sick car. I fewer a loved
one have a Dodge? Don you'd like to sell us?
We don't have the money.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Well ve five bucks? Yeah it. Installment is our budget.
We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be
right back with more. Too much information in just a moment.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
Well.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
The sizzling on screen chemistry between the pair Heath Ledu
in Julia styles led fans to wonder if there was
anything going on irl as the kids say between the
nineteen year old Heath and the seventeen year old Julia.
My notes say, hey, it's from Australia. Can't be extradited. Well,

(29:22):
you're right to wonder, because apparently something was going on
between the pair. Maybe Heath was just going method. I
don't know. They played somewhat coy about this in interviews
over the years, maybe because of the eight seventeen nineteen
year old thing, But during a tenth anniversary commentary, it
was revealed that the two leads had started dating during filming,

(29:42):
but drifted after the film's release, and by January two thousand.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
They were Done'd be cool if you didn't mean drifted
apart and you were like, they just got super into drifting.
You know, they'd seen the Fast and Furious movie, became
competitive drift bracers together.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Heath had his Dodge Dart tricked out. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
If I get a time machine, that's what I'm going
back and spending my time obsessively making sure that that
goes right. Forget baby Hitler, I can make sure he
Pledger gets into drifting.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
But apparently there was no bad blood after they split,
or supposedly allegedly split, and in a twenty sixteen interview
with The Hubigan Post, Julia Styles recalled a note she'd
recently rediscovered that Heath had written to her when they
were together. I'm forgetting the beginning of the quote, she said,
but it's something like dance like you've never heard music
and love like you've never been hurt. It was so sweet.

(30:38):
I almost cried. That was his goodbye note to me.
So that's all sweet. But here's where it gets weird.
Director Giljunger claims that Julia was actually in an on
set relationship with a different co star, Joseph Gordon Levitt.
I find this hard to believe because as much as
I'm all for the nerdy guy getting the girl, I

(31:00):
cannot imagine that giving the choice between nineteen ninety nine
era Heath Ledger and third Rock from the Son era
Joseph Gordon Levitt, the kid from Angels in the Outfield,
she went with the latter. Ggl's cute, but he's no
Heath Budger. That's the thing. You're a batman head. I

(31:21):
didn't really realize this, but I guess. There was a
lot of talk online about how much Heath Ledger and
Joseph Gordon Levitt resembled one another when they were in
back to back Christopher Nolan Batman movies. I don't see it,
and you didn't see it then and I don't see
it now. But do you have do you have thoughts
on this? No? Move on? Okay, okay, So yeah, that's weird.

(31:42):
I don't know about this relationship between Julius Styles and
Joseph Gordon Levitt. We'll touch more on that later. But
all of this is mostly speculation, but it is true
that Heath Ledger was Julius styles first on screen kiss,
which is a good one. If you gonna have a
first on screen kiss, that's probably the one you want
to go with. She would tell Cosmo in twenty eleven
that he was the best kisser in Hollywood, which is cute.

(32:05):
She had this to say after his tragic death in
January two thousand and nine. He was so nice. He
was such a force. He was, even at that age,
a very very powerful, lovely human being. God. I remember
when he died where he was living was like you
could almost see it from my dorm, and a bunch
of us like kind of wandered over there. What.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
I had a guitar teacher once who I took like
three lessons for this guy because he sucked so bad.
He was a great guitarist, just a real piece. And
when Heath Ledger died, this guy had like a more
than passing resemblance to Heath Ledger, like more than Joseph
Gordon Levitt. And he simply went to Keith Ledger's apartment

(32:48):
and started busking out on the sidewalk. But it was
just like so socopathic of him to like just go
under the go to Heath Ledgers recently vacated by reason
of death apartment and just stand outside the window and like,
I don't know, play Hallelujah or some bullshit.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Was that the idea with you? Like it was this
an opera, like an opportunity or is he just like
paying tribute?

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Okay, No, let me see if I can find uh
the interview where he talked about this incident.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Oh, he he gave an interview about this. I thought
he just was telling you about this. No.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
I remember googling him at one point, like researching him,
and that's what came up. I mean, would you, honestly
if you looked like that and and I.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
Look like that, wouldn't be playing on the street corner
that's for damn sure, that's true. All right, where were we?
We have to talk about the other cast members. Well,
Joseph Gordon Levitt, Let's just say that little that.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Little cutie boy, that little theater kid got around on set.
Reportedly he was dating Larissa olinek, who played his on
screen rush Bianca Stratford. Also, their characters in Third Rock
from the Sun dated. Isn't that cute?

Speaker 1 (34:06):
I like that? What do you think about that? I
like that.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
I just remember French Stewart from Third Rock from the
Sun experiencing such a visceral dislike that. I barely remember
anything else about the show. Yep Olnic is most famous
for most people for her starring role in the Secret
World of Alex Mack or as Ken Cosgrove's wife on
Mad Men. If You're a Super Weirdo. Funnily enough, her

(34:29):
first kiss was right or Strong aka Sean when she
was guesting on Boy Meet's World, but they had actually
met when they were ten years old doing a production
of the Miz Together. There's like three degrees of separation
between all nineties teen stars. It's true anyway. Olanic reportedly
wanted the role of Kat, the older sister initially, and
it eventually went to Styles, who is only three months

(34:51):
older than her, even though the characters portrayed as two
years old.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
I feel I'm legally obligated to mention in the Mama
Mia sequel when was cast as Meryl Streep's mom, even
though they're only like a year apart. Like a good
on share for being like, okay, yeah, I'll be. I'll
be Meryl Streep's mom.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
And look better than everyone else in this movie. Yes,
funny side note. In the film, Cat is accepted to
Sarah Lawrence College on the outskirts of New York. In
real life, that is where Larissa Olenik went. Did you
watch the sex Crimes documentary It's called Stolen Youth about
a bunch of Sarah Lawrence kids who got into like

(35:31):
a horrifying essentially like a sex human trafficking cult. No,
because one of their friends' dad moved into their dorm
era like there. You can have these detached dorm style
or housing dorms like that are like detached houses. And
her dad got out of jail and moved in there

(35:53):
with them and slowly brought them all under his throat.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
I did hear about this, oh, Liz Garbus produced this.
She's amazing, Yeah, and she did a great documentary on
Bobby Fisher, the brilliant but troubled chess master, and also
a really scary documentary called There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane,
about a woman who drove the wrong way up some

(36:16):
interstate parkway with her children in the car before crashing
into a head on going like eighty five miles an hour,
and no one knows why or what happens.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
The love Struck Cameron James, the nerd who desperately wants
the hand of Bianca. That character name is, as you
might assume, a semi pointless joke about James Cameron. When
Joseph Gordon Leavitt auditioned for the film, he initially wented
the role of Michael Eckman, later played by David Crumhols,
the wise ass friend who tries to help Cameron get
the girl. So after having to be talked into auditioning,

(36:46):
he then had to be talked into accepting one of
the major parts. He told Vanity Fair in twenty twenty,
I remember having a meeting with the directors where I
was like, this doesn't make any sense, and this feels
cheesy and that feels cheesy list I think to some
of my ideas, but mostly I think I was probably
just wrong and kind of being too serious about the
whole thing. Yeah, that's theater kid energy bow. He admitted

(37:09):
in the same interview, the experience is actually what I
love most about the whole thing. Even if people didn't
like the movie, we had such a good time. All
of us hung out all the time. Can you imagine
Joseph Gordon Levick coming under your set and giving you notes.
I can, and it's infuriating.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Were you a theater kid you sort of were.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
So briefly I missed my window. I fortunately, thank god.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
What were the shows?

Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yes, Virginia in our town. I mean I did play
king Lear once.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Oh wow, Oh, I would give it.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
That was like the hardest thing I had to do
in high school, except for like getting my black belt
and Eagle Scout. Oh I'm sure saying king Lear did
to memorize all that then, because we were just constantly
being cut for time. They would literally be calling me
up the night before and they were like, page sixty
three to seventy two is cut. It's like, oh okay,
and it is so fucking embarrassed to do Shakespeare. They

(38:02):
made us do it in front of the whole school.
I could see you'd be an incredible king leir though.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
No, don't ever want to do that again. I don't
ever want to do that again in my life. So
many words, that's really cool. I say that's I say,
that's truly, that's really cool.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Joseph Gordon Levitt's character learns French so that he can
tutor Bianca, but in real life the actor is fluent
in the language. He shows off these skills later in
the twenty fifteen The Walk, in which he plays French
tightrope talker Philippe Tit who once walked between the Twin Towers.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Did you ever see that documentary? No? I haven't. Oh
it's really I mean, I'm scared of heights, so seeing
it in the front row in the theater it was
a bad move. But yeah, it's really cool. Oh man
man wi, Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
I think the French should stick to miming. Another fun fact.
At the beginning of the movie, Cameron James quotes a
line from The Taming the Shrew end quote, I pine,
I burn, I perish, okay man. The role of the
battie teen who pays Heath Ledger's character to take out
cat not like a mob hit, so her father would

(39:13):
consent to him dating. Pianca was reportedly going to be
played by James Franco before ultimately going to Andrew Keegan.
Franco had had a similar situation years later when he
was supposed to play the love interest Aaron Samuels in
Mean Girls, but was dismissed shortly into shooting. Technically, the
Mean Girl's producers never divulged who it was that they
let go, but Daniel Francese, who played Damien, told the

(39:34):
story in Altitude magazine in twenty fourteen, saying that the
other actor hadn't shaved and didn't take his hat off.
He was playing it really cool. People kept coming over
to him like, you know, you should really take your
hat off, and then right after the table read he
got fired.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Stinks of Franco.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Do you think Franco also came in with his hat
off and not shaving, didn't They talked about the one
frecksing geeks person talked about how he was walking around
with a copy of Camu in his back pocket, so.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Like fully fully that guy, fully that.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Guy and speaking of great what what was this segue?
And speaking of greatness, we have to talk about teen
movie rural to Gabrielle Union, who makes an appearance in
this movie as a character, but is all in the
rich lineage of her role and status as teen movie queen.
She's in, She's all that Bring It On and this film.

(40:29):
Despite playing a teenager in all of these roles, gabriel
Union was twenty five while filming Ten Things I Hate
About You. In the twenty nineteen interview with The New
York Times, she said, I was over ten years older
than my younger cast members, some of whom were still
in high school. I was kind of like, how close
is this to my high school years? Do I look
crazy playing a fifteen year old? Don't mention Earth Wind

(40:50):
and Fire or give away your age.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
She's fifty one. Now. While moving through the supporting cast,
we have found ourselves at David Crumbholtz, who seems to
be having a moment now due to his role in
Oppenheimer and also apparently just like putting it all out
there on social media these days. At least he was.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
You had a bunch of viral tweets on about how
bad his experiences in Hollywood were you just sold the
garbage you got to put up with, and like embarrassing
audition stories and stuff.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
And then he deactivated his Twitter account recently. I guess
the power Sip felt that he knew too much and
they pulled the plug on him.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
You're like, you're getting a little too close to the truth, buddy,
the handler deactivated him.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Well, his forthrightness has been clear in all interviews he's
ever given about ten things they hit about you, and
he's become something of a cast diarist, as we'll get
to in a moment. He wrote a very touching piece
for Vulture a few years back recalling his time on
the set. Apparently that wasn't a miserable experience, but a
very good one. Uh. This anecdote, however, is less touching.

(41:59):
You recall that his character Michael Eckman, the wise ass
geek that jose Gordon Levitt wanted to play winds up
with uh genitalia drawn on his face courtesy of the
movie Battie Andrew Keegan. Crumbholtz recently told HuffPo I remember
having to teach Andrew Keegan how to draw a proper
in my face, which was a little strange to have

(42:20):
to do. He was nervous. I was like, I draw
tons of start with the head, do the shaft, get
to the balls. Tremendous.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Imagine Daniel da Lewis, give me an interview. Maybe it
wasn't Hollywood's fault, buddy, And now let's offset this vulgarity
with a bit of the bard Crumholtz's character also quotes
Shakespeare in this film, saying sweet love renew thy force.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
A line from Shakespeare's Sonnet fifty six. And now we
are saving the best of the cast for the last.
Alison Janny she plays the what right, No? No? Am
I right? Or am I right? Yeah? No, It's just funny.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
We get up to all these teen stars and we're like,
Alison jan good for her, though I know.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
She plays the wonderful miss Perky, the guidance counselor who
also writes erotic fiction on the side. She has that
great exchange with Julia Styles's character. People perceive you as
somewhat tempestuous hens bitch is the term used most often. Well,
I love that. Alison Jenny also added the line where
she gestures to the feed line on her mug and

(43:32):
goes cat and purrs, which people seem to like online.
It's very jiffable and tumbler friendly.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
I suppose gift get uh oh yeah, sorry, despite I mean,
that's a huge topic. I'm surprised it hasn't come up
by now, Hey it has.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
I actually forget what I actually feel about gift versus
g which says a lot more about me than it
does about you.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Just went with the one you knew would annoy me.
You're like, I didn't somehow I feel like saying it.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
Wait now I forget, Now I forget. Hang on, I'm gonna.
I'm gonna say it how I would normally say it,
and I actually forget what annoyed you.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Giff gif is correct, Okay, all right. It's an acronym
for graphics interchangeable for me. Yes, I remember this is graphics.
The word graphics does not start with the J sound. Yes,
it's not graphics, folks. It's a pretty it's settled. It's
like you don't use It's like saying a TF or
fpe ce a like you don't just get to alter

(44:30):
the way words letters sound. Because it's part of an acronym.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
It makes it a whole new word though, all right,
all right, okay, I don't I don't I see I
see the color in your face turning, turning, different shapes
in our great. It's just a fact that's not what
the word sounds like.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
I feel like I'm taking crazy bills from people get
into this conversation with me. It's like somebody like just
walks up to you and you know, they're like, yeah,
I mean, I spent a lot of time on my efone.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Well, okay, Well there's there's there's there's there's akronym twer
dot com, insta, Instagram, there's there's acronym a story like
c I a fb I where you're saying letters. But
then there's NASA where words that are made.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Up of full on yeah, but still all of those
words that you're not changing the way that. I'm like,
I'm sure somebody's somewhere said NASA and someone's like, no,
it's not pronounced like that. But it's like, you don't.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
Say like like radar or scoola.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
You don't say like scuba because it's hard to say.
As with everything American, it comes down to convenience.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
The hell are we speaking of America? Okay? Ten things
I Hate About You came out just a few months
before The West Wing premiered on NBC, and Allison Janey
became known across the country as c J. Craig. But
she always had fund memories of Ten Things Hate About
You because she said it was the first time, at
that point ten plus year Hollywood career, that she's been

(46:03):
paid a decent salary, which makes me sad.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, I never watched a single episode of The West
West Nope.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Me, neither. Kind of seem boring. Yeah, well, now we're
moving on too. We haven't even gotten to the production yet.
Ten Things I Had About You was shot in just
thirty three days in the summer of nineteen ninety eight,
and it was shot almost entirely on location, actually, I
believe entirely on location in Tacoma, Washington. I've seen some

(46:32):
listicals say that not a single set was built for
this movie, which seems insane to me. They just used
actual houses and schools and fields and what have you.
In a sense, you could say the Pacific Northwest is
a character in the film. To celebrate the twentieth anniversary
in twenty nineteen, Seattle Magazine published a guide to all

(46:54):
the Ten Things I Hate About You date spots. Such
landmarks include Lake Union, where Kat and Patrick went paddle boating,
the Fremont Troll where Bianca and Cameron went to talk
after school, and the Paramount Theater where prom was held.
Shout out to my friend Anna Maria, who was just
visiting the Stratford family home and Tacoma, which is kind
of what partially inspired me to do this episode.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
And here's where Chris Cornell shot up Heroin, Here's where
Lane Staley shot up Heroin.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
But arguably the most precious locations for fans of Ten
Things to Hit About You is the high school featuring
the bleachers and the field, which we will talk about
in a moment. The school was called Stadium High School,
so named for the fifteen thousand seat stadium that we
see during the infamous song scene. Fifteen thousand seats for

(47:41):
our public high school. That's insane. Wow. I think it's
a wow. Between the epic coastal location and the truly
overwhelming exterior, you'd be forgiven for assuming that this was
some kind of rented mansion. That's because the building that
houses the school was initially designed to be a French
chateau style luxury hotel financed by the North Pacific Railroad Company. However,

(48:07):
due to the one to two punch of the financial
crash of eighteen ninety three and the fire work in
the hotel was abandoned and the building sat empty for
years before being repurposed and opened as a high school
in nineteen oh six. And it's an historical landmark these
days that's hosted speaking engagements from Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson,
and Warren G. Harding. The school still operates today and

(48:30):
even held the Ten Things I Hate About You screening
to mark the twentieth anniversary of the film in twenty nineteen.
In the movie, Stadium High School was renamed Padawa High School.
This is a reference to Padawa, where Shakespeare set his
play and I Guess Now is a Good Time? As
Andy to mention that Patrick Verona's surname comes from the
birthplace of his equivalent character in the Shakespeare play, and

(48:53):
the Stratford sisters Cat and Bianca are named as a
nod to Shakespeare's birthplace Stratford. Upon Avon, the vibe on
this set was unusually good. I'm pleased to report the
young cast all met into Coma and became fast friends
by the end of the inaugural kickoff dinner held at
the restaurant of the Sheridan, where they were all staying.

(49:14):
David Crumholtz wrote a very sweet remembrance of his experience
on set for Vulture in twenty fifteen, and he referenced
this welcome dinner specifically. He said, by the night's end,
it was clear that this would be a transformative experience
for all of us. I had only made a few
films by that point, including The Santa Claus, which we
are legally obligated to mention, and often found myself working

(49:35):
with older actors like Tim Allen, not ones of my generation.
This was a chance to work with my peers, and
this only Kismet would allow. I found myself getting along
famously with my castmates, and he goes on to do
a cute spotlight on each cast member, and the piece
work was fun, and after work we were inseparable. We laughed,
we partied, we wrapped. Joseph Gordon Levitt turned me on

(49:58):
to fish and I turned him onto Wu Tang.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
That was the worst sentence I think I've ever read.
Those two in a room as teenagers talking about fish
and the Wu Tang clan. Can you imagine can you
imagine Joseph gord Levitt like the months after he discovered
Wu Tang clan is just like walking around talking about
Shao Land and reciting the torture skit from thirty six.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Chambers is just.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Doing all He's probably talking like method man, like oo ever.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Give a theater kid access to rap. I want to say, arguably, now.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
That's how we got lin Manuel Miranda.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
I was gonna say it might be worse after he
was exposed to fish though, I mean, yeah, two roads
diverged in a wood. It's like mustard gas and pepper spray.
Gabrielle Union had us and stitches. Julia Stiles brought her
own brand of Soho bred artistic intellectualism at only seventeen,

(50:56):
mind you, Larissa Olenix. Laughter filled the room and we
marve that the tones inness of Andrew Keegan's muscles a
great sport and Heath Ledgerd didn't arrive until a few
days after the rest of the cast, since he was
still doing Australia to continue his work on the TV
show Roar and Crumholtz recalled worrying that the addition of
this handsome new guy would disrupt the delicate social balance.

(51:18):
But as he wrote, this was a concern that was
remedied a few days later when he arrived and we
found yet another comrade and sensibility. The group with Heath
only got stronger. Before I knew it, the cast was
experiencing what I've since found to be all too rare.
I unified chemistry throughout the ensemble, without a single bad
apple in the bunch. We all agreed that we were

(51:39):
having the best summer of our lives. Julia Styles and
pretty much everyone echoed the sentiment to Cosmo, saying that
the most enjoyable part of filming was quote just being
teenagers away from home making a movie over the summer.
It was ridiculous. It was such a special experience because
it was so raw and we were so unfiltered, all
of us in the cast. There was something innocent and

(52:00):
pure about that time. The cast got along so well
together that they even went to concerts and dinner during
a break from filming. They saw both The Beastie Boys
and Pearl cham Heath's arrival really had a marked impact
on both the cast and crew. Director gild Junger's crush
on Heath also continued to intensify, as he told HuffPo

(52:23):
working with Heath was so special. I'm not saying this
because he's dead, one of the all time qualifiers. I
just liked being around him, you know, because he was alive.
I added that last book, yuess he was all alive
and all and so sexy. Just sot, he continued. Most

(52:52):
of the days of the Oh, this is actually I
find this a little weird. Most of the days I
would have my driver me up a little early, and
then I'd go pick up Heath so I could take
the extra half hour ride in with him, because I
just found them to be so freaking interesting. He was amazing.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
I just like, man, if you are that border's on
like stalking. If you're like picking up your male star
a half an hour early for call without telling him
and then just driving around with him in the car
that is live as.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
A white van.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
Yeah, that is alarming. What did you have like Bartles
and James in the bag, like hey, get in there,
like Luther Vandross is on the stereo. Young's already got
his shirt off.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Oh yeah, man, well where were we? Gabrielle Union recalled
Heath's impressive arrival during a twenty sixteen episode of Watch
What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. He told me and
anyone else who is over twenty one, so go meet
him at the top of the bar, at the top
of this hotel. And we walk in, and he's just
got this wild hair. And again he's nineteen, and he's

(54:09):
got like a dad drink and he gets up and
he was just such a man, such a gentleman. But wait,
he was nineteen. Maybe they maybe maybe the hotel is
in id Maybe the hotel was in Canada. I don't know,
the almost close to Canada, right.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
No other fans of all the underage strange in the
movie may remember. Fans of the movie will recall the
scene in which Julius Styles gets drunk at a house
party for reasons, and, in a rare instance of letting
loose around her classmates, starts dancing on a tabletop and
then she whacks her head on the chandelier. It may

(54:47):
surprise no one to learn that those dance moves were
improvised by Julia Stiles, and it got her the role
of Save Last Dance Woman. I mean that that sort
of is the tenor of her dance presence in that movie.
It was like drunk white girl who thinks she's down

(55:08):
maybe gets a little too comfortable in certain settings, saying
certain things. The Save the Last Dance guy saw her
drunkenly dancing on a table and was like, there's the
lead of my new film about solving interracial strife in Chicago,
in Chicago's South Side.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
Dumbass.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Anyway, folks, it's been long enough. Now we have to
talk about the most iconic scene in the movie. It
is one that the fine folks at Huffington Post dedicated
an entire long read to great read.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
Check it out.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
It is, and it's the moment when Heath Ledger tries
to make amends with Julius Stiles's character for not kissing
her when she was blackout drunk. If memory serves, and
he crashes her success practice soccer practice.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
What a success practice? Click for you Heigel.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Crying, crashing her soccer practice with a marching band and
serenading her with a delightfully cringey version of Frankie Valley's
Can't Take My Eyes off of You. So it's hard
to believe now that was not the original song. That
they wanted to use. According to multiple sources, they were
going back and forth between I Think I Love You
by the Partridge Family or I Touch Myself by the Divinyls,

(56:25):
which I'm guessing was a Junger pick. Gil Junger's like,
what if we haven't bear with me, guys, what if
we have this sexy guy who we found singing about masturband.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
In front of a bunch of underage Yeah? Good athleics,
what do you guys think? No, just let it marinate.
Let mary, we'll talk about it.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
Yeah, we'll come back to it tomorrow. We'll circle back.
We'll circle back. Good lord, I know. Screenwriter Karen told
The New York Times, I think Heath decided that that
wasn't romantic enough, so he chose the Frankie Valley song,
which was a much better call. Some have also stated
that was Julius Styles's idea, but I don't think she's

(57:11):
interesting enough for that. He was apparently very god, I'm sorry,
I can't It's like tonguing a sore tooth now, I
just can't stop doing it. Heath was apparently very nervous
before shooting the scene because he'd never sung in front
of anyone which is so so cute. Heath took an
active interest in preparing for the scene. He reportedly worked

(57:31):
hard on his wardrobe. Screenwriter Kirsten Smith told Weis in
twenty seventeen. He was so specific about what he wanted
to wear. It had to be this certain type of
dark shirt with a precise fit. Oddly, it's kind of
a nondescript ensemble when you actually watched the movie, but
seeing him architect the costume as part of his preparation
was so impressive, especially because he was only nineteen. He

(57:51):
also trained with choreographer Marguerite Palm Heern Derrecks, which is
as a Christopher guest mockumentary name if I've ever heard
one who was blowing up at the time, because she
choreographed the Austin Powers street dancing intro. Derek's prepared Heath
by showing him scenes from the newly released show Girls,
Showgirls iconic movie, and lots of Fred Astaire movies. Then

(58:14):
at the eleventh hour they decided to have Heath backed
by a full scale marching band. I was shocked they
didn't fly out the USC Trojans for it. The school
where they were filming stadium. High school didn't have a
marching band, so director Gil Junger sent to an assistant
to nearby Lincoln High School to enlist one.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
Hey, go to all the god all the high schools nearby.

Speaker 4 (58:35):
Yes, find out find out the really really you know,
the ones that ooze sexuality. You know what, I better
go with you on this one. I'm just gonna everybody,
We're wrap, We'll wrap, We'll do it now.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
No, go with the.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
I'm gonna go with my cat character. It's gonna be
a very busy afternoon.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
Hold this trombone, Hold this trombone.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Oh this drum bone? Yeah, really slide it. The band
director said no, perhaps realizing the kids revolted. The student
leader of the marching band ended up getting a glorified
extra roll in the film, and since Heath's character was
such an outcast, they decided to film a scene of

(59:21):
him paying the band leader three hundred dollars. Afterward, where
do you think that came me? You came from? I'm
going to show you how to palm this hundred dollars.
Not something I've not something I've done a lot in
my life down on skid row, but just to really
kill Junger This became a bit of a running gag.

(59:43):
You'll remember this band leader becomes the guy who could
get things done right. You remember the cops who chased
Heath Ledger across the bleachers, prompting a slightly premature end
to the song. I guess it's illegal to karaoke in public?

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Yeah, what is on what grounds? He goes to the school?
He's not trespassing. It's the woke left, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
An actor playing one of the cops, the overweight one
that Heath gooses, actually had the paramedics called after shooting
the scene because he was having shortness of breath and
thought he was having a heart attack. Okay, man, I
don't have an updat as to whether or not he lived.
I assume he did. Moving on, for the scene in
which Julius Stiles reads the titular poem in class, that

(01:00:31):
was done in one take, and the tears she cried
were not planned, she later told Cosmo. When it came
to filming, I never expected that I was going to
start crying. I don't know why I did, whether connected
to something going on at the time, or if I
was just overwhelmed by the whole experience of making my
first big movie. I thought that was going to be
much more touching, and she simply said she did just
cried for no reason.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Well, you'll see this more.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Furthermore, director gil Junger told The New York Times that
her performance made him cry too. I did everything I
could to cover my mouth and nose because I was
crying so hard. It was such an amazing performance. The
take in the film is the first take.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
I think.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
I jumped up and just hugged her for the longest time.
Gil Junger always makes mouth sounds when he's on a
hot mic.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
Despite the rumored affair between Heath and Julie, gil Junger
says that Julie was actually in love with Joseph Gordon
Levitt and it was her affection for him that drew
this impassioned performance out of her. He has said this
in numerous interviews over the years, including one to the
Spanish outlet Miria ken En Condre. I asked her where
did that come from? And she told me, I was

(01:01:41):
just thinking about the person's name that she was deeply
in love with at the time. It wasn't me, certainly,
but it wasn't Heath either. She for a minute or
ten went out with Joseph Gordon Levitt. They were very,
very attracted to each other. I should know. I was watching.
She's prof saying her love to Ledger and she's in

(01:02:02):
love with the guy waiting in his trailer to shoot
the next scene. Watching them, it was beautiful how much
they enjoyed each other.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
God, this guy is weird. I should know. I was watching.
For legal reasons. We should say that we have no
evidence to clan that killed or acted inappropriately on the
set of this film.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
Yeah, we're just reading between in between a lot of lines.
As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with
more too much information after these messages. Great soundtrack time

(01:02:52):
capsule time capsule of a soundtrack. Cardigan's semi sonic sister
Hazel Say Ferris performs at the John Hughes style prom
alongside Letters to Cleo, friend of mine's uncle.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Was briefly in that band. It's a Boston bustinary band.
Letters to Cleo.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Performed the second best known song in this movie, a
cover of Nikola's Cruel to Be Kind, the title of
which is a line from Shakespeare. They are also the
band who covered Cheap Tricks. I Want You to Want
me on the roof of the school at the end
of the movie, which you naturally took to be an
homage to the Beatles.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
It's probably not.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Start doing Voorshak tests with you and just say does
this remind you of the Beatles? John Jordan, does this
remind you of the Beatles? Looks like my parents divorce.
It's an actual picture. It's an actual picture of John
and Paul. Apparently, director Gil Junger asked Disney if they

(01:03:48):
could do this very costly scene and the company said no.
So instead, this first time director decided to lie to
the producer and say that Disney said it was okay, And.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
They didn't even get a permit to get the shot either.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
He went rogue, getting a bunch of high schoolers and
getting a bunch of sexy sexy teens and a few
bands up on a rooftop on an extremely windy day.
And naturally it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
Was just one band. To be fair, it was just
one band. Oh so sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
It was just letters to clear and a bunch of
sexy sexy teens.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Letters to clear.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Lead singer Kay Hanley evocatively described the scene to The
New York Times in twenty nineteen. We're all arranged on
top of this postage stamp sized roof with chicken wire
him protecting us from toppling to our deaths into the
Puget Sound. The overhead shots were achieved by a helicopter,
and they were told that each flyover cost half a
million dollars, so it was very important that they didn't

(01:04:46):
get up. Unfortunately, director Gil Junger didn't tell them that
he was going to order the pilot to practically fly
into them. Singer Kay Hanley continued, as we started playing,
we saw the helicopter appear off in the distance. It's
hard to sa say how far it was at first
because we were up so high in the air. But
then all of a sudden, the helicopter does this dive
bomb directly toward us. Is the helicopter out of control?

(01:05:08):
Is it supposed to be coming at us like this?
And I'm thinking, don't up keep singing the song. It
costs five hundred grand every time the copter takes off.
It was unbelievably scary, but it turned out to be
such an amazing shot. According to one interview, Kay said
that she literally peed her pants.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
I don't know, we literally lost its meaning. Can we
confirm that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Can we run that down to a fact check department,
the research the iHeart research department.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Well, while I run that down, did you know that
Gil Junger actually wanted this to be the soundtrack to
the movie that they were going to play off on
the roof?

Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
Do you know what it's time for?

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
No, a sexy party?

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
It's wow? Watching that, Yeah, that's so obscene. I wasn't
even gonna watch it because I know it. But watching
it and as if pretending that that's the director of
Ten Things I Hate About You made it so much funnier.
Killed johnner Man.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Maybe that's why he was so comfortable being pervy, because
he knew that there was a chance he might kill them.
I just wanted he wanted to go out on top.
If I'm going to John landis this bitch, I'm going
to make sure that I've got my jolly's with these
sexy teens first.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
I mean, you know, in a way, it's surprising that
his career didn't do better because when Ten Things I
Hated About You was released on March thirty first, nineteen
ninety nine, it was a huge critical and commercial success.
It grossed something like sixty million dollars against the thirteen
million dollar budget, and it serves as a springboard for
many of its stars, including Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon Levitt,

(01:06:47):
and of course, Heath Fledger. Here he is again. I
forgot I had a mayor. Director Gil Junger warned Heath
about the attention that he would receive following the release
of the film, as he recalled a huff Poe. I
told Heath, look, I just want you to know that
when this movie comes out, you're not gonna know what
hate you. People are going to be clamoring to work
with you, and I bet your next offer is going

(01:07:09):
to be a million dollars. And as a new friend,
I was just telling him to do his best to
remain who he was, an old soul, mature, not distracted
by drugs. Then he said to me, I really appreciate
the advice, but rather than worry about what's going to happen,
help me be the best I can today. For an
eighteen year old who's getting his first movie, I thought

(01:07:31):
he was nineteen, and that first movie is with a
Disney studio, and that director of your first movie telling
you you're going to be a huge star. Any kid
would have been like, oh, man, that's so cool. I
hope so, but not Heath. He just wanted to be
the best he could in that moment. That's so telling
of who he was. Or you're his director and not
his life coach, and he just wanted to make my

(01:07:53):
shirt off at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
You know, Keith, if you ever just want to come
over and run lines, I can pick you up in
the van, or if you ever want to like you
ever just want to read some Byron together.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
Heath reportedly turned down offers of similar teen movies after
his turn on Tendings I Hate About You because he
was fearful of getting type cast. Obligatory memoriam for Heath,
he started in sixteen films prior to his death due
to accidental drug intoxication on January twenty second, two thousand
and eight, at the age of twenty eight. During his

(01:08:29):
two brief career, he earned two OSCAR nominations, posthumously, winning
for Best Supporting Actor in two thousand and nine for
The Dark Night. While researching this movie's legacy, I was
surprised to stumble on a short lived TV adaptation that
aired on ABC Family for a single season in two

(01:08:49):
thousand and nine. Gil Junger directed the pilot and I
think a few other episodes too, but Larry Miller, who
played Cat and Bianca's father, was the only cast member
to reprise his role from the feature film, but the
TV adaptations co starred Nicholas Braun aka cousin Greg from

(01:09:10):
Succession as the Joseph Gordon Levitt character Cameron James. And
I also learned thanks to friend of the Pod Max Biddle,
I hope I'm saying your name right, that Nicholas Braun's dad,
Craig Braun, designed the lips logo for the Rolling Stones,
as well as the cover for Sticky Fingers, the Who's
Tommy soundtrack, Alice Cooper's Schools Out, the Carpenter's logo All

(01:09:32):
look up Craig Brown's Wikipedia pays It's really not so
many iconic rock designs he is responsible for, so so
that's weird. I'm glad we got to the Rolling Stones
from te Thing's Head about you in an authentic way
in this episode. Have you seen cousin Greg. No, he's tall.
He's a tall boy. Well that goes a long way.
Apparently he gets smoked salmon from the same place I do.

(01:09:54):
In Williamsburg.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
Well, I mean, the thing is is that I'm not
looking ahead him through my eyes. I'm looking at him
through Gil Junger's eyes. Oh but he's six seven?

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
Was he leisure to all? I don't know. He was
probably actually short. Yeah, I could see that he's got
that like kind of brit rock star Jimmy Page, George Harrison.
I thought you'd be taller, Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yes.
Gil Junger directed the pilot. But a guy called Carter
Covington is the one who created the Ten Things They
Hate About You show weirdly, or maybe not, because they

(01:10:26):
knew it was gonna be bad. The original screenwriters, Kristen
Smith and Karen mccullall were not involved. At the show.
Covington decided to move the focus of the series away
from the romantic relationships and instead onto the relationship between
the two sisters. Hey somewhat evolved take for a ABC
Family show, but a poor one. I love the movie,

(01:10:47):
and I think a lot of people love the movie,
Covington told the Futon critic. I know there can be
a lot of backlash when you try to turn a
hit movie into a television show, but I'd always wanted
to do a show about siblings. I think the Sibling
Dyed is incredibly ripe for comedy. Audiences disagree. In a
world overrun with half baked sequels and remakes, it seems

(01:11:09):
shocking that there hasn't been a fifteen Things I Hate
about You or eight Things I Hate about You, or
some other equally questionable take. But don't worry, they tried.
Director Gil Junger wrote a sequel called Ten Things I
Hate About Life, and he reportedly tried to send the
script to Heath Ledger. As he told Hoffing can Post
two weeks before Heath died, I was just finishing a

(01:11:31):
script for him that I wanted him to star in
Ten Things I Hate About Life. I called Steve Alexander,
Heath's agent, and asked if Heath could give me a
call so I could share this exciting project with him.
He said Heath would be taking no work calls at
all while he's filming Dark Night, because he's so far
into the character that he can't get out of it,
and he's having incredible trouble sleeping. That role shook him.

(01:11:53):
He took it so seriously and so professionally and so
profoundly that he couldn't escape it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
I should know about people not being able to escape.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
But if he's the Ledgers alive and he just faked
his own death, try to get away from this guilt
and not make this movie. Following Heath's death, Junger kept
tinkering with his script, which was more of an unofficial sequel.
He described it to Variety in twenty twelve as quote
the story of two relatable, ordinary people with normal jobs
and normal desires, who seemingly great lives have become unmanageable.

(01:12:26):
Two people who go to the same place at the
same time to end it. Their chance meeting is so awkward,
so raw, and so funny, they postpone their intentions, presumably
ending it, and go their separate ways, which is very
similar to a Nick Hornby book I called A Long
Way Down, about a bunch of people, if I'm remembering correctly,

(01:12:50):
who meet on New Year's Eve at the top of
a building and they all plan to jump off, I think,
and the same thing happens. They decide how hilarious it is,
how ridiculous their circumstances, they all decide to live, and
then I think the story is told every year on
New Year's they meet up it's almost like a little
support group or something. I don't I've read it in

(01:13:11):
a while. It was a good book anyway, I don't care.
Evan Rachel Wood was eventually tapped to be the female
lead in Ten Things Ahead about life, and filming began
in late twenty twelve, but was interrupted after two months
due to management changes at the production company and also
Evan Rachel Wood's pregnancy. In late twenty thirteen, when production

(01:13:31):
was set to resume, Wood left the project, claiming that
the producers were unable to pay her a salary. The
producers then suit her for thirty million dollars for breach
of contract. Her lawyers responded that Wood was never adequately
paid for the work she'd already done since the production
company had run out of money. There have been some
production stills at about thirty minutes of footage from this

(01:13:53):
project that have surfaced, but as of twenty twenty one,
the lawsuit is ongoing, and it's been stated by the
producers and Gil Junger that the film will never be completed,
thus sparing us a sequel. Nobody asks for for this
great beloved nineties teen classic. What else is there to
say about Ten Things I Hate about You. It's a

(01:14:15):
quality movie that didn't talk down to its young audience,
respected the intense emotions from that age, and more or
less told you not to change yourself for anyone. And
I think that's cool in that regard. It's the anti Grease.
If Sandy at the end of Grease completely changes herself
to win over her desire of her affections, this one's
the total opposite. Might be accepted for who you are,

(01:14:35):
and I think that's wonderful. It's a well made movie,
the great message, great performances without taking itself too seriously.
I feel like both of these displayed the duality of
this great movie. The first of these messages was a sweet,
candid photo of Heath with the caption reading, this Sunday
marks the twentieth anniversary of the release of Ten Things
I Hate About You, and all I can think about

(01:14:56):
is this kind soul, this leader, this talent, my friend
just too good to be true. And then he followed
up this message with a photo of himself from the
film with a penis crudely drawn on his face. There
you have the yin and yang of Ten Things I

(01:15:17):
Hate About You? Was was it? Youngers?

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
It comes over a shirt less like, Hey boys.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
David, you are quite the artist. Ah, do you need
any figure? Do you do any figure studies? Have you ever?
Do you want to?

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
Why don't you and Keith come to my trailer after this? Keith, Keith,
he could sue us over this. Make sure you cut
enough of these that were not libels. Yeah, thank you
for listening, folks, everybody you know, stay young at heart.
I'm Alex Heigel and I'm Jordan Runtalg.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
We'll catch you next time if Gil Junger hasn't sued
us into oblivion yet. Too Much Information was a production
of iHeartRadio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and
Jordan Runtogg. The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtogg
and Alex Heigel.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
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