- Title: UNITED KINGDOM: BRITISH FILM PREMIERE OF DANCE MOVIE " SAVE THE LAST DANCE "
- Date: 20th March 2001
- Summary: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (MARCH 20, 2001) (REUTERS) SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) JULIA STILES SAYING "I think it has to do with all the school shootings that have gone on in the States because Miramax owns it but they're afraid to release it because they think it might be offensive to the families or disrespectful or controversial, I don't know." BACK VIEW OF STILES BEING PHOTOGRAPHED BY MEDIA SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) JULIA STILES SAYING "Yes, on Sunday." PRESENTING AN AWARD? "Yes, one of the nominees for Best Song. I'm very excited."
- Embargoed: 4th April 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
- Country: United Kingdom
- Reuters ID: LVA7K98LPS4M2P11LONB1KIESOMN
- Story Text: It's the new dance movie that's set to put hip-hop into the realms of dirty dancing. But this time Patrick Swayze has been replaced by Hollywood sweetheart Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas.
Dance films are always winning numbers... from Fame to Dirty Dancing they're a guaranteed hit. But when hip-hop and ballet come into play, combined with a gripping tension between black and white communities, it's bound to get people talking... and moving! Save The Last Dance is the latest collaboration between Paramount Pictures and MTV Films. Hollywood sweetheart Julia Styles, who shot to fame in the delightful Ten Things I Hate About You, is back on form as small town girl Sara whose dreams of being a classical ballet dancer. Her dreams come to a bitter end when her mother dies in a car crash on the way to watching her daughter at an audition.
Sara moves to the urban jungle of Chicago to live with her father and has to adjust to life in a predominantly African-American school and a drastically different social life.
Once she meets Derek, played by Sean Patrick Thomas, her world changes. He's the crown prince of a local hip hop club and it's through the dance he teaches Sara that she learns to fit into her new environment. For Stiles not only does her character have to learn a new style of dance, she herself had to undergo intensive training. "I did do like a month and a half of training for the movie - like four hours a day of ballet and hip-hop. And all the hip-hop is me, because that's sort of what I'm better at but the ballet - some of it is me - mostly like upper body. But I couldn't go on points so they doubled the toe shots."
Her co-star Sean Patrick Thomas also had a little assistance in places. And unlike Stiles, Thomas was not so seriously into hip-hop, or at least not the culture. "Well I was into hip-hop music a lot, but I wasn't really into the clothes or the dancing that much. I was kind of at home!"
Co-star Fredro Starr is a little more authentic, in terms of his musical roots. A major rap artist who also contributes heavily to the movie's soundtrack, Starr says the crossover between the worlds of music and film goes back years. "I mean as far as Hollywood movies and music, it's always been like that with Elvis, Sammy Davis Junior, people like that. But you know guys like Ice Cube and Tupac, myself. We have the aura to bring on film so the directors, they know that, and they know we have a following too, who's going to come and see the film because they know we're in it. So it all works out."
Thomas may not come from this world but he embraced the opportunity as an actor to live it. Good acting roles are hard to come by for young black men according to Thomas; Hollywood still churns out the same roles. "Still most of the time they give you roles that are very stereotypical. You have to be really really funny or really really menacing and thuggish or whatever but if you hold out, there's opportunities to do other things. So that's what I try to do."
Like her leading man, Stiles is also striving to break new ground in the film projects she takes on. The young actress is just weeks away from being 20 and having to balance film shoots with lectures. Audiences are still waiting to get a glimpse of her portrayal of Desdemona in the Hollywood take on Shakespeare's Othello, titled O. Miramax have put back the release date twice now, keeping the film tightly under wraps due to some of the scenes resonating with high-school shootings. "They're afraid to release it because they think it might be offensive to the families or disrespectful or controversial." It's still not clear when the film will open.
Meanwhile Stiles should feel happy knowing her teens come to an end not only with rave reviews for her performances so far but with her first Oscar night. She might not be up their collecting an award yet - on Sunday she gets to present the award for Best Song - but no doubt she will be soon.
Save The Last Dance is released throughout UK cinemas on March 21st.
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