Julia Stiles Asked Michelle Williams for Her Permission to Dedicate 'DWTS' Performance to Late Heath Ledger: 'I’m Forever Grateful'

Julia Stiles shared that she asked Michelle Williams for her permission to dedicate her "transformative" Dancing With the Stars tribute to Heath Ledger.

The actress starred alongside Ledger in the hit 1999 romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You, inspired by William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.

During an interview following the emotional performance on Tuesday, October 20, Stiles confessed she asked Williams "if this was okay."

"And she said, yes," the Season 35 DWTS contestant shared of Williams, who is the mother of the late actor’s 20-year-old daughter, Matilda Ledger.

"This has been an incredible week," Julia added. "The whole experience has been incredible, but this particular week was very transformative for me and Ezra [Sosa] was an amazing partner because he was very sensitive to what I was going through emotionally."

"I was like bawling on the first day of rehearsals because of all the nostalgia and the memories,” she continued. "But also because I was… bumping up against something."

Julia credited her pro dancer partner’s understanding as they worked through the choreography.

"He clocked it, and he changed the concept or the way that we thought about the dance in a way that really opened me up, and I’m forever grateful," the 45-year-old admitted.

Julia and Ezra danced to Frankie Valli’s "Can’t Take My Eyes Off You," the song Heath famously danced to in the film when his character, Patrick Verona, tried to make a grand romantic gesture to get her character Kat Stratford’s attention.

Julia was joined onstage by several of her and Heath's costars at the end of her routine, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Larisa Oleynik, Gabrielle Union, Susan May Pratt and Andrew Keegan.

"Well, when we decided we were going to do the dedication, we needed to have somebody here to sort of represent the movie or represent Heath, and I was like, it has to be the whole cast. Can't just be one person; it's got to be everybody,” she said of their decision to reunite.

"Everybody said I'll do it if everybody else does it. And then that was it,” she spilled.

Heath was just 28 when he died in 2008 from an accidental prescription drug overdose.

He was previously in a relationship with Michelle, whom he met on the set of Brokeback Mountain. The former couple welcomed their daughter during the press tour for the film before parting ways in 2007.

"He was just a beacon of light. He was the leader of the pack," Julia said about Heath. "He just was always very playful and made it such a fun set to be on and brought out delight in everyone."