’10 Things I Hate About You’: Heath Ledger’s Song, the Cast and the Musical

• Julia Stiles dances to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” for Heath Ledger on Dancing With the Stars Dedication Night on Tuesday, Oct. 20. It’s the song Ledger sang to her in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999).
• Ledger picked the Frankie Valli song himself and worked out his own escape from the guards in the bleacher scene, the cast and crew recalled in 2019.
• The movie, a high school version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, is headed to Broadway in 2027 as a musical by Carly Rae Jepsen and Lena Dunham.

Julia Stiles, 45, is bringing 10 Things I Hate About You back to the ballroom. On Dedication Night of Dancing With the Stars, on Tuesday, Oct. 20, she and pro Ezra Sosa dance a contemporary routine to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” in honor of her late co-star Heath Ledger.

She told People at the InStyle Imagemaker Awards on Oct. 15 that she was “surprised at how emotional it’s been,” and that watching clips of the two of them “is bringing up a lot.”

He lives on because his performance in that film was so incredible.

Julia Stiles, to People

What is Julia Stiles dancing on ‘DWTS’ Dedication Night?

A contemporary routine with Sosa, set to the Frankie Valli song Ledger’s character sings to hers in the movie. The episode airs live at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+ and streams the next day on Hulu, with Kym Johnson as guest judge.

The 10 remaining couples each dedicate a dance to someone who shaped them.

It’s her second movie tribute of the season. In Week 5, she and Sosa paid homage to Save the Last Dance, with a cameo from her co-star Sean Patrick Thomas.

Fans can back the couple through the official text number and website, and the full lineup is in our Season 35 cast guide.

Who picked ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ in 10 Things I Hate About You?

Ledger did. In the scene, his character, Patrick Verona, serenades Stiles’ Kat Stratford from the stadium bleachers, backed by the school marching band, then bolts when campus security comes after him.

According to the cast’s 2019 oral history in The New York Times, Ledger chose the song and choreographed his own chase. Director Gil Junger remembered that Ledger “was running with such joy that it physically exhausted the guards.”

Stiles was 17 during filming, and Ledger, who was 19, coached her offscreen too. She said he gave her tips on how being drunk looks and feels for Kat’s table-dancing scene, because she had never really been drunk.

Who almost played Kat and Patrick?

Casting director Marcia Ross said the studio screen-tested Josh Hartnett and Eliza Dushku alongside Ledger and Stiles, who won on chemistry. She also loved Katie Holmes, who was about to land Dawson’s Creek, and Kate Hudson, whose mother, Goldie Hawn, didn’t like the script.

Junger said Ledger won him over in seconds. After one page of the script, he switched the audition to improv, and about 35 seconds later he had seen enough.

What is 10 Things I Hate About You based on?

Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. In the play, a father in Padua won’t let his younger daughter, Bianca, marry until her sharp-tongued older sister, Katherina, does, so Bianca’s suitors pay the brash Petruchio to court Katherina.

The movie keeps the setup and the names. Kat and Bianca Stratford attend Padua High, their dad won’t let Bianca date until Kat does.

New kid Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who has a crush on Bianca, schemes with a friend to get another admirer of hers to pay Patrick to take Kat out. The title comes from the poem Kat reads aloud in English class near the end.

Written by Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith, the film was shot largely in Tacoma, Washington, and opened on March 31, 1999. ABC Family later turned it into a 2009 TV series with Lindsey Shaw and Ethan Peck.

Is 10 Things I Hate About You coming to Broadway?

Yes, in 2027. Carly Rae Jepsen and Ethan Gruska are writing the music and lyrics, Lena Dunham and Jessica Huang the book, and Christopher Wheeldon is directing and choreographing. No cast, theater or opening date has been announced.

It’s Jepsen’s first stage score; she made her own Broadway debut in 2014, as Cinderella in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.

What happened to Heath Ledger?

He died on Jan. 22, 2008, at 28, in New York. The city’s medical examiner ruled the death an accident caused by the combined effects of prescription medications. A year later, he won a posthumous Oscar for playing the Joker in The Dark Knight.

More on Stiles’ season: Andy Cohen’s apology for his “DWTS” dig and why Val Chmerkovskiy sits out Dedication Night. More in Movies & TV.

— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: Julia Stiles to People (Julia Moore, Brianne Tracy), Oct. 15, 2026; ABC’s Dedication Night lineup, via ABC News (Angeline Jane Bernabe); The New York Times’ 2019 oral history of the film, via TODAY (Ree Hines); The News Tribune (Tacoma); Broadway announcement for the musical, September 2026; New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner (2008 ruling on Heath Ledger’s death). Photos and video: Disney+ (10 Things I Hate About You), Good Morning America/ABC.