Julia Stiles is taking her range of experience in front of the camera and applying it to adapting Renée Carlino’s emotional novelWish You Were Hereto film. Well-known for her roles in everything from10 Things I Hate About Youto her Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated turn inDexter, the romantic drama serves as Stiles' feature directorial debut. In addition to directing, Stiles also co-wrote the script with Carlino, working closely with the book’s author to retain the heart of the novel in the film, even as some things were changed for the screen.
Wish You Were Herelargely shines a spotlighton Charlotte, a young woman who yearns for something new in life and finds herself surprised by a whimsical night with the charming and imaginative Adam. When he suddenly becomes antagonistic and never returns her calls, Charlotte struggles to move on with her life, particularly when she learns sometime later that he is actually dealing with a terminal illness. Refusing to ignore their meaningful connection, and warnings from her family, she elects to help him spend his remaining time in a meaningful fashion.
Where To Watch Wish You Were Here: Showtimes & Streaming Status
Wish You Were Here, directed by Julia Stiles and starring Isabelle Fuhrman and Mena Massoud, will hit limited theaters in January 2025.
For theWish You Were Herecast, Stiles reunites with herOrphan: First Killco-star Isabelle Fuhrmanto play Charlotte, while the rest of the roster includesAladdin’s Mena Massoud,Dirty Dancing’s Jennifer Grey,Frasier’s Kelsey Grammer and Gabby Kono-Abdy, who is also a producer on the film and first sent Stiles the book to pique her interest in adapting it. Mixing a meaningful character drama with gorgeous visuals and powerful performances from its cast, the movie proves to be a welcome first outing for Stiles in the director’s chair.
In anticipation of the movie’s release,ScreenRantinterviewed Julia Stiles to discussWish You Were Here, how she worked closely with Carlino to adapt her novel for the screen, why she thought Fuhrman was the perfect choice to play Charlotte in the film, as well as her thoughts on potentially returning as Lumen inDexter: Resurrectionand why she has yet to watchThe First Omenafter having starred in the 2006 remake.
Stiles Has Been Eagerly Awaiting The Chance To Make Her Directorial Debut
“…it’s only gotten deeper and more meaningful for me…”
Throughout her career, Stiles has worked with some of the best-known directors in the industry, ranging from Paul Greengrass ontheBournefranchiseto David O. Russell onSilver Linings Playbook, but amid her career, she has “been looking for something to direct for a long time”, with the biggest hurdle being she “couldn’t really find the right story”:
Julia Stiles: I had been looking for something to direct for a long time, and couldn’t really find the right story. It was at, like, the tail end of COVID, or the big 2020 version of COVID, where we were all isolated from each other and only interacting through screens. Gabby Kono, who’s in the movie, sent me this book, and what struck me at that moment was that this was a love story about trying to connect with another human being on a deeper level than just through a dating app, or a love-at-first-sight kind of situation. It’s a meditation on the idea that we should be so lucky to create a lifetime of memories with somebody else.
As she looked back on the development process and working with Carlino, Stiles recognized that the movie has “only gotten deeper and more meaningful” for her and praised the author for being “very, very generous and trusting” with Stiles to make changes to the novel to fit the screen, citing one notable moment as being a key change:
And in the time since we set out to make the film, it’s only gotten deeper and more meaningful for me, and feels even more relevant and necessary. It’s a very hopeful film. I’m a romantic at heart, so I love the idea of true love, or two people really connecting to each other in that way and taking care of each other and seeing each other, and then the movie kind of took on a life of its own from the book. Renée was very, very generous and trusting with me to understand that, for the sake of a film, I had to distill a lot of her book.
One of the key moments in it, and is an idea that I also seized on, and was drawn to in the book, is ultimately, we find out that Adam is in the hospital, and it’s not looking well. He’s kind of shaking Charlotte out of her denial, and he says that he cannot spend his last days in a hospital. He has to go out into the world and do something meaningful. So, in a lot of ways, it’s about the fragility of life, and that the time that we have on this earth is precious.
So, in the book, they go out all over the world, and I had to pick one location. I wanted to, so that we could spend some time with the two characters and just land with them, and let them be together. But, you know, it’s a process, because a lot of times there are things in novels that just don’t fit into a film. But Renée was very trusting of me, and I walked her through all of the choices that I wanted to make.
When it came to balancing making these changes and staying true to the novel, Stiles recalls being “really excited by the challenge” of having to make “tough decisions” in the director’s chair, particularly as things like scheduling and budget required her to “find a creative solution around things”. She again pointed to another “major shift” in the movie from the source material, which she assures is “true to the spirit of Renée’s book”, but also connects better with her vision of the story and characters:
Julia Stiles: You know, actually, I was really excited by the challenge of being a director and facing those tough decisions. I think, in making a film, you’re always going to be dealing with the amount of time you have to film and budget constraints, and then also, just things that pop up unexpectedly, and I loved having to find a creative solution around things. One of those, I won’t give it away, but there’s a major shift in the script, a change that I made that is a departure from the book that I thought of literally three weeks before we started shooting, and it was because I needed to simplify what we were filming.
But it actually ended up being, I think, what makes the movie, and it seizes on this idea, which was also something that I loved when I first read it. So again, it’s true to the spirit of Renée’s book. In some ways, this is two versions of a love story. It’s the love story that they have in reality, and then it’s the love story that they fantasize about, and the love story that they dream about that they haven’t had yet.
Isabelle Fuhrman Is “A Force” & Wowed Stiles OnOrphan: First Kill
Stiles Was Also Charmed By Mena’s “Kind Soul”
When it came to building her cast for the film, part of why Stiles immediately found herself drawn to the idea of Isabelle Fuhrman leading theWish You Were Herecast was theirworking together onOrphan: First Killat the time she was developing the script for her adaptation. The Golden Globe nominee hailed her star as “a force” and recognized the “stamina and dedication” she had while leading the horror prequel:
Julia Stiles: Isabelle, what a force. I was in the process of adapting the script for Wish You Were Here while we were filming Orphan, and it was during COVID, like, as restrictions were lightening up a little bit. We could go back into work, but we were still all wearing masks. The city we were filming in was on lockdown, so there wasn’t much socializing. So, with all my downtime, I was focused on Wish You Were Here. Sorry to that director. [Laughs] No, Isabelle, I watched her.
I was playing her mom, but she was 23, and she was playing an 11-year-old, and I remember watching her every day going, “Oh my god, this girl is such a good actress. This is so convincing.” And she was a workhorse. When you’re the lead in a film, you have to go to work every day, start to finish, and be in every scene, and with something like Wish You Were hHere, pour your heart and soul into it. It takes a lot of stamina, and I saw on the set of Orphan that she had so much stamina and dedication that I thought she would be perfect for this part. And I’m so lucky that she responded to it.
In looking at Massoud, Stiles acknowledged that she “didn’t know him personally” prior to the film, having largely seen him in Disney’s live-actionAladdinremake, though did acknowledge that she saw a “kind soul” in him from watching his food travelogueEvolving Veganand thought him perfect for the role of Adam:
Julia Stiles: And then Mena, I didn’t know him personally, but I had seen him in Aladdin, and I knew he has a TV show, also, and actually, his TV show is not scripted. So, you kind of get a sense of his personality, maybe more than just his acting ability, but I could see, like, “This is a kind soul.” [Chuckles] I know that sounds so stupid, but there was something, he was just very magnetic, and I could see him in this role, and I was right.
Lumen’s Time In Dexter Is “Closed” In Stiles' Eyes
“…she went back into the light.”
Looking beyondWish You Were Here, one of Stiles' most acclaimed roles was that ofLumen Pierce inDexter, the former lover of the titular killer whose arc was solely situated in season 5. WithDexter: Resurrectionset to bring Michael C. Hall back to the franchise yet again, some are hopeful to see Lumen return to the fold, though Stiles thinks that time has probably long since past:
Julia Stiles: Thank you. I loved working on that show. I feel like her chapter kind of closed at the end, because she went back into the light. So any reboot of Dexter, I don’t know how she would descend into darkness again, but I do appreciate it.
Stiles Hasn’t WatchedThe First OmenYet (& Might Not For A While)
“I’m also scared of horror movies, to be honest.”
While having scored just as much acclaim for her work in the world of drama, Stiles has also often explored the horror genre, with one of her more notable outings being that of 2006’sThe Omen, a remake of the Gregory Peck-led horror classic of the same name. The franchise recently made a comeback withthe critically acclaimedThe First Omen, a prequel to the original movie, but the movie has not yet made its way to Stiles' screen for a few reasons:
Julia Stiles: I have not had a chance to see it. I’ve had my head buried in the Wish You Were Here sand for over a year. I haven’t been able to consume much of other entertainment, because I’ve been so visualizing this movie and executing it in my head, from filming it to editing it to adding music, you know, that I haven’t had much room or bandwidth. But I will check it out. I’m also scared of horror movies, to be honest. [Chuckles]
AboutWish You Were Here
Julia Stiles makes her directorial debut in a brilliantly warm and romantic film based on the bestselling novel, Wish You Were Here. Isabelle Fuhrman, Mena Massoud, Jennifer Grey and Kelsey Grammer star in a fascinating movie about leaving the everyday world behind to take a chance on true romance. When the perfect night with a perfect stranger ends suddenly the next morning, Charlotte searches for answers and meaning in her disappointing life until she uncovers a secret that changes everything.
Check out our otherWish You Were Hereinterview with Isabelle Fuhrman, Mena Massoud & Gabby Kono-Abdy!
Wish You Were Hereis now in theaters and hits digital platforms on February 4.
Wish You Were Here
Cast
Wish You Were Here, directed by Julia Stiles, follows Charlotte as she searches for fulfillment. After a passionate encounter with Adam, who later disappears, she learns of his terminal illness and dedicates herself to making his final days meaningful.
