Julia Stiles is pretty sure she mentioned here and there that she was interested in directing, but how exactly Gabby Kono-Abdy came to know that remains a bit of a mystery. In the midst of the pandemic Stiles received an Instagram message from Kono-Abdy saying she’d heard Stiles was interested in directing and wondered if she’d considered the book “Wish You Were Here.” “I think she was a fan of my work as an actress,” Stiles recalls. “She was 25 at the time I think, and she just is one of those remarkable young women who was very determined and had a vision and was like, ‘I think you should look into this.’” Soon a formal letter from Kono-Abdy, herself an actress, landed with Stiles’ agents, saying how much she believed in her to direct. As soon as she read the book, Stiles knew she had finally found her directorial debut. “I was immediately struck by it,” says Stiles, who also adapted the screenplay. “I had been looking for a project to direct for a while, and couldn’t find the right story, but then this book just spoke to me. I had a visceral reaction to it. I laughed, I cried. I laughed through
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