She's trapsed the globe with super-spy Jason Bourne, but Julia Stiles' greatest journey is the one she'll soon be making inside her own head, the 26-year-old told MTV News, as she gears up to play Esther Greenwood in the film adaptation of the classic Slyvia Plath novel "The Bell Jar."

Sometimes described by readers as a "female 'Catcher in the Rye,'" "The Bell Jar" follows Greenwood as she experiences massive, clinical melancholia, through commitment to a mental hospital, electroshock therapy, and several suicide attempts. Ask most casual students of English literature and they'll tell you "The Bell Jar" is one thing above all – effing depressing.

"I don't think so. I don't think it's depressing at all. It is ABOUT depression," Stiles argued. "But I think that Sylvia Plath writes with such awesome, beautiful, vivid imagery that is so perfect for film, that it's kind of a joy. I wouldn't have spent this much time trying to set up the movie if I didn't love it." Read more...