The movie Ten Things I Hate About You is a fan favorite but there are things you probably didn’t know about this movie. Read below and learn about it.

Though Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) is attractive, intelligent, and somewhat abrasive to most of her peers, she doesn’t draw a lot of attention from boys. House norms state that Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), Kat’s younger sister, cannot date until Kat has a lover, therefore efforts are made to put the somber damsel up for a relationship. Suddenly Kat runs into beautiful newcomer Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger). Will Kat let her guard down long enough to be seduced by the affable Patrick?

This movie actually loosely based on Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew.” The main plot is closely related. Bianca is not able to date until Kat acquires a boyfriend, which is similar to the play although it is more so about becoming wed and more formal. During the movie, there is a character that is obsessed with Shakespeare and brings him up often. They made an effort to closely relate the hometown of Shakespeare and where the movie takes place.

The school used in the film is Stadium High School located in Tacoma, Washington. The school was first built as a grand, chateau-style railroad station hotel but after it suffered fire damage, was renovated into a high school.

The marching band in the sequence where Heath Ledger sings to Julia Stiles was not from Stadium High School, where the film was shot. Stadium was approached by the makers of the movie to do the scene but did not have a marching band. The makers of the movie then contacted Lincoln High School, a nearby Tacoma school, which furnished the marching band depicted in the scene. Several members of the Stadium Band assisted but had to be taught how to march.

“

He knew he wasn’t great, and I think that’s the charm of that scene, of course, that it’s bad…I think he probably went for it in that way, really not being prepared but being as goofy as he could be, running around in the bleachers doing his thing.

— Gil Junger