Julia Stiles Was Stranded and Broke in Cuba

By Kelly Fisher Posted Jan 17th 2011 08:05AM

Actress Julia Stiles was almost stuck in Cuba last December while providing humanitarian aid, she writes in the Wall Street Journal.

"With three days left to go in my trip, I was walking around Havana flat broke," she writes. "Cuba is not a place where one can access American banks or use credit cards, so if you run out of cash you cannot get anything. You can't even get off the island."

Stiles was in the midst of figuring out how to get money when she received news of her Golden Globe nomination for her guest role on 'Dexter,' and couldn't even enjoy it.

"[I was] thrilled to have received such a professional honor, yet still unable to barter it for cab fare," she writes.

She tried to figure out how she had gotten into such a cash-strapped situation.

She writes, "I replayed every expense that had gotten me to this point. ... I was under the impression I had been quite frugal, but I was so accustomed to thoughtlessly using credit cards, I had underestimated how much cash to bring even just for the basics."

Stiles' younger sister was also in Cuba with her college, and promised to cover her financially, but there was one minor problem: the cash was locked in her dorm's safe, which could take days to open. In the meantime, Stiles had to figure out how to survive on her skills.

She quips, "I thought about reciting monologues in the Plaza Vieja for spare change."

Long story short, the dorm's safe was eventually opened and the owner of the Havana bed and breakfast where Stiles was staying drove her to the airport to catch a flight to Miami.

If one thing's for sure, she won' forget about this trip for a quite a while.

"With all of its crumbling beauty, Havana taught me the true value of a dollar," she writes. "It also taught me that the people you know, and the ways in which you rely on one another, are more valuable than any paper currency."

Tags: julia stiles

Comments

(12)

Monday 17 January

By reynosa98

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That's so sad, homey. I'm sure one of the local brutha's would have been more than happy 2 have let you share his bed wit him!

By Bebe

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Idiot!

By stu

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i noticed she was not @ the Globes last night. ids she lost in Disneyland. this cuba lie sounds like a disney story to me honey bun.
PS: The Swimmer made Striptease look like Hamlet.

By carm

couldnt get aride to the airport?
option 2.......get on a raft to Miami.
why would you even go to Cuba for humanitarian work? thats just an excuse to go sleep with other womens husbands for a dollar.

By Ted Bundy

That's why you don't go to Cuba.

By KR

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Just go to Miami instead. Close enough.

By art

no, i don't want to check it out or tell my friends. just keep up your good work and make them old dudes happy.

Julia Stiles should have used her skills as a Chef down there. oops, that's Julia Child.

By Choperia

This may be one of the goofiest stories I've ever read! I don't believe half of it. She is not a very good liar.

By walkingman50

Isn't it great that there's not one damn place in the entirety of the United States that poor Julia could have gone to help with humanitarian aid ?????????

By speech

I thought Americans were banned from going to Cuba and there are no flights from U.S. to Cuba so I guess she went via Canada maybe?

Tuesday 18 January

By Sendai

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Julia, when you're on the verge of being homeless, have nearly everything taken from you, when you don't have the luxury of having someone that has money stashed away in some dorm safe, when you go for days without food because you have no money, when you have to give up your car before they can repossess it because you've run out of money, when you can't pay your bills because you don't have a dime to your name for more than a day, then you'll realize what being flat broke really means!

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