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Julia Roberts Says Humanity Is Losing “Art of Conversation” but Hopes ‘After the Hunt’ Can Turn That Around
Hollywood Reporter ^ | August 29, 2025 | Chris Gardner

Posted on 08/29/2025 1:58:12 PM PDT by nickcarraway

Luca Guadagnino’s latest film, Amazon MGM Studios’ ‘After the Hunt,’ stars Roberts alongside Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri, Chloë Sevigny and Michael Stuhlbarg.

To give you a sense of the knotty conflicts, character dynamics and power struggles at play in Luca Guadagnino’s new film After the Hunt, during the film’s official Venice Film Festival press conference, Julia Roberts got asked out of the gate to offer her thoughts on whether the film undermines the feminist struggle.

“Not to be disagreeable because it’s not in my nature,” Roberts said with a grin as she defended the movie by countering that it’s only meant to inspire debate. “There’s a lot of old arguments that get rejuvenated in this movie in a way that does create conversation. The best part of your question is you talking about how you all came out of the theater talking about [the film], and that’s how we wanted it to feel — that everybody comes out with all these different feelings, emotions and points of views. You realize what you believe in strongly and what your convictions are because we stir it all up for you. So, you’re welcome.”

After the Hunt is described as psychological drama about college professor Alma Imhoff (Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when star student Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) accuses her colleague Hank (Andrew Garfield) of assault. As events unfold, a dark secret from the professor’s past threatens to be revealed. Guadagnino directed from a script by Nora Garrett.

Actually, the pointed question was the second of the session, and it followed a journalist asking Roberts and Edebiri what was so attractive about playing such “troubled women.”

“Trouble is where the juicy stuff is. All that great complexity that Nora wrote for all the characters is what assembled this kind of a group,” Roberts responded, gesturing to the press conference panel that hosted Guadagnino, Edebiri, Garfield, Garrett, Chloë Sevigny and Michael Stuhlbarg. “It’s like dominoes of conflict, once one falls, then suddenly everywhere you turn, there’s some new piece of conflict and challenge. That’s what makes it worth getting up and going to work in the morning.”

As for Edebiri, she called the gig “a dream” because of the challenges it presented. “That’s how you grow,” she added. “That’s the type of movie I enjoy watching.”

Roberts and Edebiri in After the Hunt. Yannis Drakoulidis, Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios Roberts, who clearly enjoyed her time with Guadagnino as evidenced by her sartorial choice when arriving in Venice, said working on After the Hunt reminded her of Bruce Beresford’s Tender Mercies. The 1982 drama follows a broken-down, middle-aged country singer as he gets a new wife, reaches out to his long-lost daughter and tries to put his troubled life back together.

“I just thought there was something magical about the idea that a kind of camera just landed in a place and happened to document what was going on where it landed. That’s how I feel about this movie,” Roberts explained. “We’re not making statements. We are portraying these people in this moment in time, and the camera has fallen from the sky in this particular moment and and captures all this. That’s what is sort of incredible about it.”

Roberts continued: “It’s not so much that we’re making a statement. We’re just sharing these lives for this moment, and then we want everyone to go away and talk to each other. That, to me, is the most exciting bit because we’re kind of losing the art of conversation in humanity right now. If making this movie does anything, getting everybody to talk to each other is the most exciting thing that I feel we could accomplish.”

Conversations will surely be in full effect when After the Hunt team has its world premiere Friday evening here on the Lido inside Sala Grande. The 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival runs Aug. 27-Sept. 6.

Amazon MGM Studios releases After the Hunt on Oct. 17.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Health/Medicine; TV/Movies
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To: TalBlack

I think Edebiri was referring, as an actor, to the challenge of playing the role.


41 posted on 08/29/2025 3:25:27 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: Jamestown1630

She said

” we stir it all up for you.”

That’s not a statement that says NOT stirring it up.

Shheeesssh.

Your spin skills suck.

/-/

And youre both.


42 posted on 08/29/2025 3:37:22 PM PDT by cuz1961
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To: cuz1961

Both a contrarian and a lib.


43 posted on 08/29/2025 3:38:13 PM PDT by cuz1961
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To: nickcarraway

What immense ego. Your effing plays and movies do nothing but degrade the country.


44 posted on 08/29/2025 3:38:24 PM PDT by Seruzawa ("The Political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence" - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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To: cuz1961

She’s saying that one of the products of drama and cinema is precisely the stirring up of issues to cause people to think about them. All art does that.


45 posted on 08/29/2025 3:41:11 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: cuz1961

P,S.: Your reading comprehension sucks.


46 posted on 08/29/2025 3:42:50 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: Seruzawa

I watch movies to be entertained. If I want to be preached to, I’ll go to church.


47 posted on 08/29/2025 3:44:50 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: ClearCase_guy
People don’t read books.

I don't blame people for not reading books. Most are poorly written, and/or biased because it's the same editors and the same publishing houses.

48 posted on 08/29/2025 3:50:40 PM PDT by T.B. Yoits
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To: Wilderness Conservative

I talk about whatever I want to. To whoever I want to. I only stop myself from talking on certain subjects because of where I happen to be at the time.
I have no fear of offending anyone or losing friends. Be bold! Speak what you want to speak.


49 posted on 08/29/2025 4:21:02 PM PDT by vpintheak (Screw the ChiComms! America first!)
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To: Jamestown1630

Art
Marxism

Any excuse will do for progs

Stirring shit is their SOP and MO

Without that they have nothing to work with.

Spin isn’t

” reading comprehension”

either

ya damn weasel.


50 posted on 08/29/2025 4:24:19 PM PDT by cuz1961
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To: Jamestown1630

is precisely the stirring up of

/

And yet your earlier post said that’s what she was NOT doing.

Make up your mind dudette.


51 posted on 08/29/2025 4:26:13 PM PDT by cuz1961
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To: Jamestown1630

Pick your turd and stick with it.

Otherwise people might think you just say whatever

To stir shit

cuz you’re an

’ artistic’

prog Marxist .

😆


52 posted on 08/29/2025 4:28:51 PM PDT by cuz1961
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To: vpintheak

Im plenty bold when it comes to family. I just dont give a $h1+ about discussions anymore. After youve lived as long and been through as much as me, you’ll probably feel the same.


53 posted on 08/29/2025 4:44:44 PM PDT by Wilderness Conservative (Nature is the ultimate conservative)
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To: cuz1961

No, i wrote that she was addressing comments that accused the film of not stirring up PROGRESSIVE stuff enough; it had been suggested that the film ‘undermined the feminist struggle’.

Good night. I’m going to watch a movie.


54 posted on 08/29/2025 4:59:29 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: ClearCase_guy

::Anything that can help bring back the old days is a good thing.::

~~~~~~

The last place I would look for such would be in the garbage that Hollywierd produces.


55 posted on 08/29/2025 5:09:51 PM PDT by Bigg Red ( Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.)
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To: nickcarraway

Concerning the attitude of the left there is no chance of a decent conversation with them


56 posted on 08/29/2025 7:07:23 PM PDT by South Dakota (Vance / Trump...2028 )
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To: nickcarraway

When a rat wants to have a conversation they mean for them to preach and me to listen and agree. No thanks.


57 posted on 08/29/2025 7:49:10 PM PDT by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite its unfashionability)
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To: nickcarraway

Is this not the skunt that said if you look in the dictionary you will find the word Republican in-between reptile and repugnant?


58 posted on 08/29/2025 8:00:29 PM PDT by DAC21
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