10 Things I Hate About You is a 1999 American
romantic comedy film directed by
Gil Junger and starring
Julia Stiles,
Heath Ledger,
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and
Larisa Oleynik. The
screenplay, written by
Karen McCullah Lutz and
Kirsten Smith, is a modernization of
William Shakespeare's late-16th century comedy
The Taming of the Shrew, retold in a late-1990s American
high school setting. In the story, new student Cameron (Gordon-Levitt) is smitten with Bianca (Oleynik) and, in order to get around her father's strict rules on
dating, attempts to get "
bad boy" Patrick (Ledger) to date Bianca's ill-tempered sister, Kat (Stiles). The film is titled after a poem written by Kat about her bittersweet romance with Patrick. Much of the filming took place in the
Seattle metropolitan area, with many scenes shot at
Stadium High School in
Tacoma.