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This year marks the 25th anniversary of 10 Things I Hate About You, the beloved 1999 rom-com that loosely adapted Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew into a teen hit, supersonically launching the careers of Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. 

We're delighted to welcome director Gil Junger for a live Q&A alongside a screening of the film at Picturehouse Central.
Thursday 19 September, 6.30pm | Book Tickets

You can also catch a screening in our Six Degrees of Shakespeare season.
From 06 October | Book Tickets | More on Six Degrees of Shakespeare

In the meantime, Gil called in from the U.S. for our podcast, The Love of Cinema. Listen and read on below.

How did 10 Things I Hate About You come into your life?

I had just directed the coming out episode of Ellen. That was a very important episode of television, certainly in the US. It was about something very emotional and terrifying and vulnerable. And I really never had the opportunity to direct something of that emotional depth before.

And I loved it. And then I thought to myself, wait a minute, if this is how exciting directing one hour is, I can only imagine how amazing it must be to direct a movie when you have 90 minutes or 100 minutes to delve into characters. And I thought, if I'm ever going to make the leap to features, this would be the time.

And then a month after that, I was offered to meet with Disney on 10 Things. I got the script, I just thought wow, there's a really fresh voice, you know? It was fresh and honest. And it was funny without trying too hard to be funny. I liked it.

But I had ideas, you know, I had quite a few ideas. I didn't really like the character of Kat at first. I said to Disney, I have no problem with her being arrogant or removed or bitter, but I have to understand emotionally why she's that way. And then with the Heath character, I want to know what makes him feel like an outsider.

But bottom line, it was a great script. And my best friends were showrunners, the head writers of major sitcoms. So we spent four days doing some rewrites. We took out 28 pages, because I never saw any point in directing 120 pages for a 90 minute movie. I wanted the script to be really compact.

You got quite close to filming, and had seen a lot of people, and hadn't found those leads yet. So talk to me about discovering Julia Stiles for this role.

Disney wanted me to hire Katie Holmes and James Vanderbeek. The kind of names they'll give you a little bit of a guarantee for box office. I appreciate that, I said, but what I'd rather do, if you'll give me the chance, is find incredible talent that isn't known at all.

I had offered the movie to Kate Hudson. And she was also a first timer. No one knew who she was at the time. But her mom convinced her that the movie wasn't going to work. I don't know the specifics, but she passed.

So anyway, we saw a lot of young women, and we were close, and I did not have the lead. I was in New York directing some TV show, and Marcia Ross, the then head of casting at Disney, said to me: "There's this young girl, she lives in New York. I know nothing about her, she did one small indie. But her agent, who I respect, is raving about her. Would you please meet her?".

She met me at my hotel. She was wearing a baggy sweatshirt, some kind of baggy yoga pants, and that gorgeous mane of hair that she had in the film was in a ball in the back of her head. No makeup, no nothing. 'This is who I am', right?

She shook my hand firmly, looked right into my eyes and said, "Hi, I'm Julia, it's a pleasure to meet you". I thought to myself, please know how to act, because you're going to get the part if you do.

I was already in. It was just the way she carried herself. I don't even think I had her read the whole thing. I mean, she was just fantastic. And the instant she left, I called Disney and said, that's our girl. 

And then comes Heath Ledger. At this point, he's seventeen years old, and has only done a few small films in Australia.

I was three weeks away from shooting. And we didn't have the guy. And that was a little scary. I think I had read 250 guys by that point. And if I read 250, that means casting has read probably 2500. Marcia Ross and the casting team were unbelievable.

So we were in another casting session at Disney and this guy and that guy and all these great looking men, one after another. Bang, bang, bang. And Marcia said, "Okay, disclaimer, I don't know anything about this next kid, never even been to America."

So Heath walked in and he took - I'm not exaggerating - he took maybe four steps towards me. I thought to myself this exact thought: if this f–ker can read English, I'm casting him.

There were 10 pages of sides to read. We read the first page. And I said, okay, you can put the script down. And he looked panicked. He was only in the room for like two minutes, and the poor guy flew 17 hours to get there.

He was cast before he got to his car. He was magic.

As a young man, I liked him so much. I'd have my driver pick me up early, so that we could pick up Heath on the way and ride in with Heath. I just found him to be so unique and so open and so engaging. He was a magnet. It was a great experience working with him.

You put together a cast with so many fresh faces. Larisa Oleynik as Bianca, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cameron, David Krumholtz as Michael. And then some amazing, more established talent like Alison Janney!

Larisa auditioned for Kat, originally, that was the part she wanted. And I didn't see her for that, but I saw her for Bianca and she was fantastic. I don't think Joseph had ever made a movie. He was on TV, Third Rock. David Krumholtz, I had directed him in a sitcom like a year before. I didn't even read him, I just cast him.

And then I saw Alison Janney in a movie where she played something to do with the president. She's glorious. I mean, you know, she's an Academy Award winner. She's the real, real deal.

The whole filming process…you're set up in Washington for a summer in 1998. And the way that everyone talks about it, it kind of just seems like a summer camp. It's all these young people staying on the same floor of a hotel, making a movie, getting on really well.

They went out every single night. That's the vibe I like to have on set.

It was easily my favourite work experience because all the kids were so young and there wasn't even a shred of an ego anywhere. It was so collaborative. It was a joy.

We were shooting the big party scene at the end, you know, the party scene in the mansion when all the kids are getting drunk, and Julia did that iconic phenomenal dance number on top of the table. We were shooting that scene for a week at this beautiful house right on the water. And during lighting breaks, we would take people water-skiing. I would come back to set soaking wet.

It really was pure joy. The whole shoot, it was magical. I like to try to bring that to the set just because that's my nature as a director, but it's also very nurturing for comedy.

That fun and playfulness lends itself to the more emotional elements of the film as well, that beautiful reading of the poem at the climax of the film.

I can honestly say that was one of the most poignant moments I've had in my career. That speech.

I was in the back of the classroom and I was sitting on the dolly. A halfway into the speech. I started to lose it. I was really crying. I was so emotionally overwhelmed by the magnitude of that young person's performance.

That was the first take and that was the only take. I didn't even shoot it again. It's one of the most magical moments I've had in my 48 year career.

Why do you think the movie has such lasting power?

I knew the movie was a hit every day of shooting. And I had never made a movie.

When I got the movie, I said to Joe Roth, who was the chairman of Disney, and Donald De Line, who was president of Touchstone Pictures, "I want you guys to know that I will not be making a high school movie for you. What I'm going to make is a movie about characters and relationships and human emotion. And the characters in that movie just happen to be high school kids."

I was 40 at the time. I wanted to make a movie that I was going to be proud to bring my friends to.

And they said, "Go, do your thing, we love it". And that's what interests me. Love. What's more interesting than that?

Do you have a favourite line from the film?

When Larry Miller was trying to frighten his two daughters about a pregnancy that he just gave birth to twins.

And he says, "This morning I delivered a set of twins to a 15 year old girl. Do you know what she said to me?"

And Larisa says, "I'm a crack whore who should have made my skeezy boyfriend wear a condom?

And then, the look on Larry's face - no one else is going to quote this as their favourite line - he says: "Close. But no. She said, I should have listened to my father. Well, that's what she would have said if she wasn't so doped up."

Oh, there are so many takes I f–ked up, because I was just laughing out loud like a goofball.

 Lucy Fenwick Elliott

Hosted by Picturehouse's very own Sam Clements, The Love Of Cinema podcast goes deep on the best new releases, with a little help from some of our favourite film critics, plenty of special guests, and you, the audience!