Julia Stiles looks unrecognizable at the premiere of her new film (2024)

Julia Stiles looked almost unrecognizable as she stepped out on her first red carpet in months to celebrate the premiere of her upcoming medical drama The God Committee on Saturday night.

The 40-year-old star, who shot to fame after starring in the hit 1999 movie 10 Things I Hate About You, put on a very elegant display at the Tribeca Film Festival event, looking a world away from the tomboy character that first propelled her to stardom more than two decades ago.

Mother-of-one Julia modeled a plunging black-and-white polka-dot dress for the occasion, pairing the design with black stiletto heels and a very natural, barely-there makeup look, showing off her very youthful complexion.

She wore her blonde locks in very loose waves that hung down below her shoulders, and went accessory-free as she posed happily for the cameras.

The God Committee will see Julia taking on her first lead role on the big screen in several years, and the medical movie is set to premiere just over 22 years after the actress first shot to fame while starring in hit movie 10 Things I Hate About You opposite the late Heath Ledger.

At the time, the romantic comedy propelled Julia, who was 18 when she shot the film, to the height of Hollywood stardom and turned her into one of the industry's most sought-after leading ladies.

One year after the movie debuted, Julia starred in another rom com, Down to You, alongside on-screen heartthrob Freddie Prinze Jr, before going on to find further big screen success in Save the Last Dance, which also featuredSean Patrick Thomas and Kerry Washington.

However, after the success of the dance-focused film, Julia's career as a leading lady dwindled somewhat, and in 2019 she opened up about struggling to find her place in the industry during her 20s.

Speaking to The Daily Beast, the actress admitted that she felt as though she was 'jumping from job to job that she wasn't really connected to', and she confessed that she was 'worried about where her career was going' for a while.

'I think a few years ago my frustration was feeling like nobody knew what to do with me,' she said.

'You know, I had had some success in my twenties and now I’m in a different place in my life and I didn’t really fit anywhere.'

Although Julia worked consistently throughout the 2000s, the roles she was landing were much smaller than the leading characters she had played at the start of her career, and she turned more of her attention to on-stage opportunities in the theater and work behind the camera as a director.

However, she was thrown back into the spotlight in 2019 when she was cast in the Jennifer Lopez-led movie Hustlers, in which she played a journalist who interviewed former strippers about their criminal activities.

Now, The God Committee will see her taking on another leading role, a talented doctor who serves on the heart transplant committee at a New York City hospital.

Julia - who welcomed her first child, son Strummer, with husband Preston J Cook in October 2017 - stars alongside Kelsey Grammer and Janeanne Garofalo in the medical drama, which is set to hit screens on July 2.

During Saturday night's red carpet event, Julia happily posed for pictures with Kelsey as well as several other co-stars, including Colman Domingo, Harris Gurny, Molly Conners, Dan Hedaya, Peter Kim, Amanda Bowers, Vincent Morano, Jonathan Rubenstein and the movie's director Austin Stark.

Grammer looked handsome in a white button-down, black trousers and matching loafers.

Meanwhile Domingo sported a black and white patterned dress shirt, bold pants and beige slides with yellow socks.

The cast's upcoming film centers around an organ transplant committee that 'has one hour to decide which of three patients deserves a life-saving heart.'

Seven years later, the 'members struggle with the consequences of that fateful decision.'

It was recently announced that Stiles will be making her directing debut with Wish You Were Here, 'a romantic drama she co-wrote with Renée Carlino based on the latter’s novel,' according toVariety.

She reportedly will not act in the project and no cast has yet to be announced.