{"id":173218,"date":"2025-06-07T20:00:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T20:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/07\/larisa-oleyniks-low-key-life-after-10-things-i-hate-about-you\/"},"modified":"2025-06-07T20:00:48","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T20:00:48","slug":"larisa-oleyniks-low-key-life-after-10-things-i-hate-about-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/07\/larisa-oleyniks-low-key-life-after-10-things-i-hate-about-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Larisa Oleynik’s Low-Key Life After 10 Things I Hate About You"},"content":{"rendered":"


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10 Things I Hate About You<\/em> and The Secret World of Alex Mack<\/em> made Larisa Oleynik<\/strong> a true icon of the 1990s.<\/p>\n

At age 12, Oleynik won the leading role on Nickelodeon sitcom Alex Mack after competing against more than 400 other aspiring young actresses in an open casting call. The series ran for 78 episodes between 1994 and 1998, establishing Oleynik a teen idol in the process. She parlayed her Nickelodeon fame into leading roles in Hollywood blockbusters like The Baby-Sitters Club<\/em> and 10 Things I Hate About You<\/em> by the late 1990s.<\/p>\n

Oleynik has mostly maintained privacy around her romantic life, though she did date 10 Things<\/em> costar Joseph Gordon-Levitt<\/strong><\/a> in the late 1990s. She told Morbidly Beautiful<\/em><\/a> in 2019 that she realized at an early age that it was important to keep her personal life away from the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was 12 when I started doing Alex Mack. It was challenging for me, and when I started getting recognized and stuff it was very confusing,\u201d she remembered. \u201cI was shuttling back and forth to my real life living in northern California. We\u2019d travel to southern California to film and then go back to northern California to be in school.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Related: <\/span>\u201810 Things I Hate About You’ Turns 26! Where Is the Cast Now?<\/span><\/a>
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\n\t\t\tThe beloved 10 Things I Hate About You made its debut on March 31, 1999, and more than two decades later, fans are still talking about the romantic comedy. Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger played star-crossed lovers Kat Stratford and Patrick Verona, respectively. The pair reluctantly fell in love with each other amid a backdrop [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

She continued, \u201cI was trying to maintain some sense of normalcy, whatever a normal childhood even means. But it would get confusing sometimes when I\u2019d be hanging out with my friends and someone would recognize me. I was very self conscious about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve grown up, I think this is something I\u2019m still trying to figure out, trying to take on a public persona but also be able to leave it as I need to,\u201d Oleynik noted.<\/p>\n

Oleynik took a break from her acting career at the height of her 1990s fame to enroll in New York\u2019s Sarah Lawrence College. She referred to her self-imposed acting hiatus as \u201cthe best decision\u201d she\u2019d ever made in a 2006 interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that I wanted to go to school and I wanted to go for four years, and in New York,\u201d she said. \u201cMy favorite [classes] were the writing workshops. I took poetry classes, and courses in playwright and screenwriting. They were very comforting and productive. Everyone was respectful of each other. No one claimed to know everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Larisa Oleynik and Julia Stiles in \u201910 Things I Hate About You\u2019<\/span> Courtesy Touchstone Pictures\/ Courtesy: Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a 2024 New York Times<\/em><\/a> profile, Oleynik said she was partially inspired to attend Sarah Lawrence College because it was the same school her costar Julia Stiles<\/strong><\/a>\u2019 character Kat chose in 10 Things I Hate About You<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Oleynik revisited 10 Things I Hate About You<\/em> when she reunited with costar and onscreen sister Stiles at the New York City premiere of Stiles\u2019 feature directorial debut Wish You Were Here<\/em> in January 2025. Stiles told People<\/em><\/a> earlier in the night that she was looking forward to catching up with Oleynik.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that Larisa Oleynik is gonna be here tonight, which will be wonderful to see her,\u201d she said. \u201cWe kind of, you know, the way that it\u2019s hard to keep in touch with people but [we talk] over text messages.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Related: <\/span>Romantic Comedies That Were Inspired by Shakespearean Works<\/span><\/a>
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\n\t\t\tMany beloved romance-focused movies have taken inspiration from the Bard himself: William Shakespeare. 10 Things I Hate About You, the 1999 cult classic that starred Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger, was initially inspired by The Taming of the Shrew.\u00a0 The movie followed sisters Kat and Bianca Stratford (played by Stiles and Larisa Oleynik, respectively) as [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Oleynik told The New York Times<\/em> in 2024 that she really did feel a sisterly bond<\/a> with Stiles while they were filming 10 Things I Hate About You<\/em>. She remembered wanting her costar\u2019s attention and approval on set because Stiles was a \u201ca cool, downtown New Yorker\u201d who seemed \u201cso much more mature,\u201d even though they were only a few months apart in age.<\/p>\n

In January 2024, Oleynik revisited another longtime friendship she shared with Rider Strong<\/strong>, which began when they starred in the national touring company of Les Miserables<\/em> as children. Strong referred Oleynik to her first-ever acting agent and sparks flew a few years later when she guest starred on his sitcom Boy Meets World<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Rider] was my first kiss<\/a>, like, ever. That\u2019s why there was so much tongue!\u201d Oleynik shared on Strong\u2019s \u201cPod Meets World\u201d podcast. \u201cAll I remember of that entire experience, of the first episode at least, it was [filmed] between the first and second episode of [The Secret World of<\/em>] Alex Mack<\/em>. I was a very young, 14 or 15 years old, and I was a very late bloomer. When things sped up, they really sped up. But at that point, I was a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oleynik continues to act while living a somewhat quieter life in Venice, California. She had a recurring role on Mad Men<\/em> as ad executive Ken Cosgrove\u2019s girlfriend Cynthia Baxter and returned to Nickelodeon to voice the witch Icy in the animated revival of Winx Club<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Oleynik has also worked extensively on stage, including starring in the Off-Broadway production Who\u2019s Your Baghdaddy, or How I Started the Iraq War<\/em> from 2017 to 2018. The play satirizes the events leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.<\/p>\n

The actress headlined the one-woman show I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti<\/em> at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York in 2016, where she regaled audiences with tales of love, loss and all of the meals along the way. The stage comedy was adapted from Giulia Melucci<\/strong>\u2019s 2010 memoir of the same name.<\/p>\n

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\n Related: <\/span>Julia Stiles Reveals Where She Thinks Kat Stratford Is Today<\/span><\/a>
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\n\t\t\tJulia Stiles is known as a former teen film queen \u2014 and perhaps her most famous character is Kat Stratford from 10 Things I Hate About You. The smart, strong-willed high school feminist always spoke her mind and tried to avoid what others thought about her in the process. Stiles, 43, believes she\u2019d still be [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWhen you [read the memoir], you feel like you\u2019re hanging out with a friend,\u201d she explained<\/a>. \u201c[This] seems like the most simple thing in the world but to really be able to create that environment artistically, and have that be what you\u2019re trying to give people as an experience, I just think there\u2019s nothing more profound than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actress entered a new career phase in the past few years, as she\u2019s started playing moms on TV sitcoms. Speaking to E! News<\/em><\/a> in 2020, Oleynik joked that she was fully embracing being \u201cin the mom zone\u201d stage of her career.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in the \u2018mom zone\u2019 is the best,\u201d she declared. \u201cThat\u2019s\u2026what I\u2019m going out for right now, not exclusively, but that\u2019s just where I\u2019m at. And it\u2019s actually a huge relief.\u201d<\/p>\n

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