Julia Stiles has explored falling in love before in movies. Her directorial debut shows a romance that’s ‘much more grown-up.’

For Julia Stiles, seeing her directorial debut hit theaters this week is a moment she finds especially “surreal.”

“It’s also honestly really surreal and strange to be promoting a movie in the wake of such a horrible ongoing disaster,” she told Yahoo Entertainment, referring to the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. “But it feels good to be full of emotion.”

Stiles directed the romantic drama Wish You Were Here, in theaters Jan. 17, which she also adapted from the bestselling book of the same title with the book’s author, Renée Carlino. The film follows 20-something Charlotte (Isabelle Fuhrman), who meets and falls for Adam (Mena Massoud) in a single night. When he seemingly ghosts her after their one-night stand, Charlotte searches for answers and learns something unexpected.

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The book evoked “a visceral reaction” from the 10 Things I Hate About You actress, who said the first thing she responded to was the “maturity” of the star-crossed couple’s story.

“The love story that we explore is so much more grown-up,” she said. “It’s not about love at first sight.”

What the first-time director also wanted to explore was modern dating and the “shock” of “being ghosted.”

“You never know what’s going on with the other person,” Stiles explained. “They could be being a jerk, or something could be going on — and [Charlotte] discovers that something is going on.”

When it comes to love, Stiles, 43, said her experience as a married mother of three has helped to change her perspective.

“Even short films that I’ve made always kind of meditate on what relationships and falling in love is all about, what dating is about,” she said. “But that’s changed, obviously, as I’ve gotten older and I have my own family now. What you want in your 20s is very different from what you want when you’re older.”

Fundamentally, she added, some things are the same no matter what age you are, but “when you first start dating, a lot of what you’re falling in love with, whether it’s lust after somebody or just being attracted to them, or with dating apps … a lot of times what you fall in love with is the idea of this person.”

The characters in the film, despite their young age, “let you in on a world where they would have had more time together, where they would have had a deeper, deeper, long-lasting love with a lifetime together,” Stiles said.

“I thought that was beautiful as an idea, but also heartbreaking,” she added.

Julia Stiles on the set of Wish You Were Here. (Spencer Pazer)

This is Stiles’ first time directing a feature film, and she said she was “lucky” to have worked with so many good directors throughout her career. However, the Save the Last Dance actress shared what she thought the “great ones” all had in common.

“They all stayed really calm,” she said. “They just resonated calmness, which is so important when you’re an actor to be able to perform, to know that you’re in good hands and not see any of the stress that a director is going through.”

Stiles even dialed up two of her former directors — Paul Greengrass from the Bourne franchise and Rodrigo Garcia, who directed her in the television series Blue — to tell them, “I had no idea what you were going through.”

“Rodrigo Garcia, in particular, was like, ‘Yeah, I fooled you,’” she said. “Because it’s like a parent. You can’t come home at the end of the day and relay your day of stress to the kids. You have to keep it light and safe.”

She added, “I don’t know if I did that well with my actors, but I hope I did.”

Wish You Were Here is in theaters Jan. 17.

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