The ‘Save the Last Dance’ costars had a ‘shared mission’ to pull off ’the movie because they knew people were doubting them’

• The iconic teen-dance-drama movie “Save the Last Dance” premiered 20 years ago with unexpected box-office success.
• Costars Sean Patrick Thomas and Julia Stiles spoke with Insider about how they were both aware of “skeptics” and “doubts” from the studio during filming. 
• Stiles, who was 19 when the movie was filmed, also remembers Thomas (who was 30 at the time) having “a maturity and a confidence, despite the skepticism…and a groundedness that I find really rare in actors and particularly in male actors.”
• Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.

“Save the Last Dance” premiered to massive box-office success almost exactly 20 years ago – on January 12, 2001.

The dance-drama starred Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas as two high school seniors who fall in love over a shared passion for dance during a tumultuous period in both of their lives.

In recent conversations with Insider, the two opened up about the “doubts” they faced while filming the now-iconic teen dance movie

“We both felt like people doubted us and our ability to pull this thing off,” Thomas said. “I know in my case, I’d heard things that made me feel like I wasn’t necessarily everybody’s first choice for the role.”

“There was this din of [both] support and criticism or skepticism from the studio,” Stiles added. “A lot of different opinions got filtered and somehow made their way back to us.”

Both Stiles and Thomas remember feeling like a tight-knit team on set, working together to pull the movie off

Stiles, who had costarred alongside the late Heath Ledger in "10 Things I Hate About You" in 1999, was launched into a new level of fame with this movie. Thomas was in a similar position as his biggest previous film credit was 1999's "Cruel Intentions," in which he played a musician named Ronald.

"What I loved about working with [Julia] was that every time I saw her in the morning, when we rehearsed and were getting ready to go, I felt like we had a common understanding - that we understood that there are those that doubted whether or not we could do this and we were gonna prove them wrong," Thomas said.

"We were going to do excellent work," he added. "Both of us were very focused on that, and I think that shared mission comes through in the film."

Read more: The 17 best dance movies, including 'Save the Last Dance,' ranked

Thomas said he will "always appreciate Julia for that" because he knew they had each other's backs "as artists and as people."

"Sean is such a lovely human being, such a gentleman, and he was a really good partner in terms of tackling that movie," Stiles told Insider in a separate conversation. "I did feel like we were a team. I felt like I could rely on him because there was this sort of undercurrent of pressure that comes with being the lead in a big studio movie and that was really only my second time experiencing that."

She added that she was also "very young, so you can feel it. You can feel the pressure."

Stiles, who was 19 years old when she filmed "Save the Last Dance," was taking a gap year between high school and college. The movie was filmed that winter in Chicago.

Thomas, on the other hand, was 30 years old at the time. Stiles said his added years of experience in the acting industry "helped" in that he "was reliable."

Read more: 'Save the Last Dance' costars Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas break down the movie's iconic dance scene 20 years later

"He had a maturity," she added of Thomas. "And I can say, in my now-20 more years of experience working in film, he has a maturity and a confidence, despite the skepticism that he was talking about, and a groundedness that I find really rare in actors and particularly in male actors."

Stiles also remembers Thomas as being a "stable rock" for her, particularly with the added pressure she put on herself when it came to learning the ballet dancing required for the role. 

Stiles said working on 'Save the Last Dance' helped her learn how to 'ignore' skeptics

"Something that I really learned while making that movie was how to ignore those voices," Stiles said. "That was my first experience of it, but I've learned that that is a huge part of studio filmmaking."

"They're always going to doubt. They're always going to doubt until the movie is successful," she continued. "They are always going to be skeptics from the studio. You can't really focus on that or you'll implode."

"Save the Last Dance" surpassed expectations when it knocked "Cast Away" off the top-spot in the box office in 2001, earning just over $27 million in its first weekend.

When it surpassed expectations, Stiles said that it allowed her and Thomas to "breathe a sigh of relief." She added, "That was a huge boon for me and Sean." 

"Save the Last Dance" went on to earn over $131 million worldwide, and remains one of the most memorable dance-dramas ever made to this day.