Julia Stiles 'Felt So Slimy' as a Teen Dancing on a Table in Down to You at Harvey Weinstein's Insistence

Some 25 years after it premiered in theaters, Julia Stiles is remembering her 2000 film Down to You as one that was "executed very poorly" — and that's due in large part to its producer, Harvey Weinstein, she says.

In an interview this week on actor Brett Goldstein's Films to be Buried With podcast, Stiles, 43, said Down to You — in which she starred alongside Freddie Prinze Jr. at age 18 — was "executed very poorly."

Calling Prinze Jr. a "wonderful actor," Stiles said, "It was a time when teen rom-coms were really popular, and the director wrote the script."

"[Kris Isacsson] was a first-time director and he was a very, very intelligent, capable guy," she said. "The script was very good, and then Harvey Weinstein got his hands on it and decided to capitalize on this trend."

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She continued: "And it just became dumb. As far as I remember — I haven't seen it in a long time ... and they're pouring money at it, in stupid ways."

Stiles added that her roles in the 2001 film Save the Last Dance and 1999's 10 Things I Hate About You (in which she memorably danced on top of a pool table) meant that Weinstein wanted the actress to dance in Down to You — with those scenes filmed in re-shoots.

"I love to dance but it was dumb. It was like, let's get her on a pool table ... it wasn't even imaginative," she recalled. "I'm told that, he — because of the success of Save the Last Dance, or the success of 10 Things I Hate About You, with me dancing on the pool table — he, like needed to have me dancing in the film."

She continued: "And I felt so slimy doing it the whole time ... It was annoying because it was like, 'Well, this is so cheap, and it's not adding to the story.' "

"Down to You. You can rent it and see. Tell me if the dancing-on-the-pool-table scene is still there, because it was stupid. And we shouldn't have shot it," she added.

Through a spokesperson, Weinstein tells PEOPLE, "Julia Stiles is a talented and charismatic actress who naturally connects with audiences. Beyond her acting skills, she's also a fantastic dancer, which was something fans really wanted at the time. I included that scene in Down to You to enhance the film's appeal, and her chemistry with Freddie Prinze Jr. made it work seamlessly."

Although the former Hollywood producer's 2020 convictions in New York State for rape and sexual assault were overturned in April 2024, he remains in jail because of his 2022 convictions for sex crimes charges in California.