Next Big Thing for the Last Big Thing

Movie fans,however,might be forgiven for thinking Ms. Stiles has been keeping a low profile lately. After her breakthrough opposite Heath Ledger in 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You,Stiles spent the early part of the last decade regarded as Hollywood’s Next Big Thing,starring in movies like Save the Last Dance and The Prince and Me. Since then her Hollywood presence has diminished. The 2006 remake of The Omen fizzled,her role in The Bourne series was a modest one,and her last feature film,The Cry of the Owl,based on a Patricia Highsmith novel about a woman who turns the tables on her stalker,went straight to DVD in the United States.

Stiles,though,has been nothing if not busy. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in English literature. She directed a short film,called Raving,and dabbled in online video,including teaming up with a comedy troupe,the Vacationeers,and editing music videos for indie musicians like M. Ward and the band Papercranes. She is now shooting 10 episodes of Dexter,her first major foray into television. Most ambitious of all,she’s become a producer,striving to adapt The Bell Jar,the autobiographical novel by the poet Sylvia Plath,into a feature film.

Stiles,29 talked about her vision for The Bell Jar,whose protagonist,Esther Greenwood,descends into mental illness under the strain of creative and social pressures.

“One side of the book is fascinating to me because of the specific time period,the 1950s,but there’s also something that’s very timeless about it,” she said. “What makes Sylvia Plath such a good writer is her ability to write imagery. If you could see this girl’s vivid imagination,it would help the audience understand the intense feelings that she has. It’s a different kind of depression that she suffers from. Instead of seeing the world in black and white,she sees it almost in hyper colour,and to me that seemed perfect for a film.”

The cast includes Stiles as Esther and Virginia Madsen as the therapist Nolan. And after a long search for a director,Stiles and Rattray settled on Nicole Kassell,whose films include The Woodsman,in which Kevin Bacon plays a convicted child molester adjusting to life after prison.

Stiles has been seeking to broaden her acting experience. Dexter,which stars Michael C. Hall as a serial killer with a conscience,appealed to her because of its writing and because it offered the chance to work on a character “for hours and hours longer than a movie.” Stiles gets to portray a psychologically and physically damaged woman named Lumen who presents Dexter with a dilemma.

Stiles has also just made a short film with Neil LaBute,called Sexting. “You see me in a cafe,there are other people,but I sit down with this other woman,played by Marin Ireland,and I launch into this sort of diarrhea-of-the-mouth diatribe,and we did it in one take,just like that.”

LaBute sees a kindred spirit in Ms. Stiles. “I’ve been very lucky to have her be able to work with me while I’ve been doing material that begs for exploration,for someone who seems inherently unafraid,” LaBute wrote in an e-mail message. “I find her to be quite fiercely intelligent and also fearless — not a combination you see very often but it can be pretty breathtaking when the alchemy is just right.”