Julia Stiles Says Motherhood Is the ‘Best Training’ for Directors

Julia Stiles has learned a thing or two since becoming a mother — and her career in Hollywood has benefited because of parenthood.

“Being a mother is such good training for being a director,” Stiles, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly at the Wish You Were Here premiere in New York City on Wednesday, January 15. “You have to be good at time management, you have to be a multitasker.”

She compared managing her three children to directing a set efficiently, especially when unforeseen issues arise. (Stiles shares sons Strummer, 6, and Arlo, 2, and a third baby born in 2023 with husband Preston Cook.)

“You have to be present but also think 10 steps ahead. You have to be able to operate really well with sleep deprivation,” Stiles joked while celebrating her latest film’s release at the Crosby Street Hotel.

The actress explained that with both directing and parenting you must “manage people’s emotions and needs but also guide them.” She concluded, “A hundred percent [it’s] the best training.”

Stiles most recently directed and cowrote Wish You Were Here, which follows a woman named Charlotte (Isabelle Fuhrman) on her search for love. When she finds someone special, she learns the man (Mena Massoud) is terminally ill, so she commits to helping him celebrate the last days of his life.

“I wanted to make a romantic movie that was really all about the human characters,” she said about the project, which premieres on Friday, January 17.

Related: Julia Stiles Recreates ‘Save the Last Dance’ Number in Surprise ‘SNL’ Cameo

Julia Stiles gave Us everything we wanted for the holidays this year: a reinvented version of her Save the Last Dance performance. In the Saturday, December 9, episode of Saturday Night Live, cast member Chloe Fineman proclaimed during a “Weekend Update” segment that the iconic ballet/hip-hop dance makes the best “intimate” Christmas present for a […]

While Stiles told Us that her kids are “still a little young” to see most of her movies, her eldest child came to set with her for Wish You Were Here.

“[He] really loved that, so he is excited about this one,” she gushed.

Stiles, for her part, is even more proud of this project since it is her directorial debut. (This is her first feature film as a director after working on a short in 2007 and a few episodes of Paloma.)

“I would do [many] things differently. There’s so many movies that I was in that I would want to do over on only because I was so young and it was a lot of trial and error,” Stiles told Us, reflecting on her evolution both in front and behind the camera.

Related: Julia Stiles and Husband Preston Cook’s Relationship Timeline

Julia Stiles and her husband, Preston Cook, have ensured that their relationship was private for nearly a decade. The actress and Cook, a camera assistant, began dating in 2014 after meeting on the set of her film Blackway and quietly got engaged one year later. “It was a total surprise,” Stiles said during a July […]

She explained, “You learn so much as you get older. And now being behind the camera, I really see what it’s like to be in an editing room and how a whole film comes together. And then if you really trust your director, they will protect you in the editing room.”

Stiles noted that “overall” she would’ve “like to not have been afraid” as an actress when she started out and instead learned more about the behind-the-scenes portion earlier. “That’s where it all goes down.”

Wish You Were Here hits theaters on Friday, January 17.

With reporting by Travis Cronin