Julia Roberts landed at the Venice Film Festival wrapped up in her director.
As she flashed her famous smile, the iconic star donned a custom white cardigan with Luca Guadagnino’s face emblazoned all over it. The garment fit in more ways than one. Guadagnino, the prolific Italian auteur behind “Call Me by Your Name,” “Challengers” and “Queer,” thrives on making bold statements — and speaking in declarative ones.
Drawn to excess, emotional extremes and lush, decadent photography, Guadagnino is fueled by passion. So is Roberts, and that’s made her one of our most enduring movie stars — and inspired their collaboration as cinematic soulmates. In “After the Hunt,” Guadagnino and Roberts team up on one of the most boundary-pushing stories of the year, revolving around a rape accusation on a college campus. In an era when #BelieveWomen has been the defiant stance, “After the Hunt” doesn’t necessarily side with the alleged victim.
In the film, Roberts plays Alma Olsson, a philosophy professor at Yale who has little in common with the inspiring lecturer she portrayed two decades ago in “Mona Lisa Smile.” Cold, isolated and suffering from chronic pain, Alma finds herself in the middle of a scandal when her favorite student, Maggie (played by Ayo Edebiri, the Emmy-winning star of “The Bear”), accuses another professor, Hank (Andrew Garfield), of sexual assault after he walked her home from a party. As Maggie’s complaint plays out — potentially derailing the careers of multiple faculty members — Alma drifts away from her husband, Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg), and her friend Kim (Chloë Sevigny), a psychiatrist on campus.
On Aug. 30, the day after the film premieres in Venice, Guadagnino and his cast sit down with Variety at Hotel Cipriani — a landmark that gives such strong “The White Lotus” vibes that Mike White is staying here — for a group interview. Roberts says that working with Guadagnino on “After the Hunt” reminded her of the late director Mike Nichols, with whom she collaborated on “Closer” and “Charlie Wilson’s War.” As she imagines Nichols being able to watch her latest film, she tries not to cry. “I think all the things that drive Luca are things that Mike really would appreciate,” she says. “It would just be really meaningful. And I think he would also really …” She trails off and looks away.
Certainly, “After the Hunt” is an example of a prestige ensemble drama created for adults, the kind of movie Hollywood rarely makes anymore. The film, which Amazon MGM will release in theaters on Oct. 10 after its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival, divided audiences in Venice from its first moments — its opening credits, for instance, list the actors in alphabetical order, in a nod to Woody Allen’s movies. At a press conference on the Lido, a journalist labeled the film “anti-feminist,” after which Roberts held court, dismantling her argument while smiling ear to ear.
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America’s sweetheart, it turns out, relishes the opportunity to probe cultural divides. Sitting next to her co-stars in a restaurant booth, Roberts lets loose her famous laugh when Guadagnino volunteers to direct her in “My Best Friend’s Wedding 2.” (Yes, dear readers, she’s in talks for it.) Roberts tells stories about inviting Guadagnino to her home, where he and his production designer bunked in her 20-year-old twins’ rooms. She was so nervous about meeting Sevigny that her daughter, Hazel, wanting to avoid any awkwardness, fled the room. But there was no reason for jitters: In fact, despite playing one of her most aloof characters yet, the real Roberts starts to tear up when Sevigny talks about admiring her. Maybe it was the jet lag — or maybe, having worked together in the crucible of a heady, controversy-courting film, these actors really do love each other that much.
Let’s start with an important question: Julia, you arrived in Venice wearing a sweater with Luca’s face all over it. How did you end up with that wonderful piece of fashion?
Julia Roberts: I made that happen. I might have a few more surprises as the tour goes on. I’m currently wearing Chloë Sevigny’s underpants. You know, Luca was so excited about coming to Venice, so that was my way of arriving, literally, with Luca on my sleeves.
And Luca, you didn’t know?
Luca Guadagnino: Nope. She sent me a picture in the morning in the boat. I thought, “How sweet. A beautiful picture.” And then I go, “What’s that?”
Roberts: “What’s that all over?”
Guadagnino: I was on set because I’m shooting a movie. I started to laugh. And then an hour later, I started to be bombed by messages.
Roberts: “Have you seen the sweater? Have you seen the sweater?”
Guadagnino: Like probably 200 messages.
How did you two meet?
Guadagnino: Truth of the matter is that this movie started with Julia on a couch in a friend’s house. I got a beautiful script from Nora [Garrett, the screenwriter], and I was going to L.A. to shoot a commercial. And then our agent, Bryan Lourd, wanted us to meet. So there was a party, and we sat on a couch as if I knew you forever.
Roberts: It was like, “Hi, nice to meet you.” And then we literally were sitting like this [she leans forward and looks directly into Guadagnino’s eyes] for two hours.
It was like you were soulmates.
Roberts: That’s how it felt.
Guadagnino: Truly.
Chloë Sevigny: I felt that way when I first met him too. [Nods at one of her co-stars.] You did too.
Andrew Garfield: I did, yeah.
Guadagnino: It’s a complete soulmate — all of them!
What’s it like to be on the set of a Luca Guadagnino movie?
Ayo Edebiri: For me, I felt it was really freeing. I felt free. This is going to sound so strange, but like a type of parenting that I didn’t get. He would ask me, “Why?” and, like, genuinely be interested in my thoughts and in my reasoning and where I was coming from, and then offer his challenge to that. I couldn’t show up as anything other than my higher self, because that was the standard that he was setting.
Garfield: Very permissive, very liberated, radical, allowed to follow any impulse, no matter how strange.
Michael, you’ve worked with Luca on three movies now, starting with “Call Me by Your Name.” What has your experience been like from film to film?
Michael Stuhlbarg: It’s one of those things you long for as an actor — to find a collaboration with someone you have such the highest possible respect for, so that you can explore your own gifts as well and your own limitations and challenges. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted, and it has provided a singular, perpetually resonating gift for me.
Guadagnino: I’m the luckiest person that I know.
In this film, do you have answers in your head for who is guilty and who is innocent?
Garfield: Yeah. I’m very, very clear about what happened.
Edebiri: I think I also am too. I don’t know if they match up, which I think is right. I think that that’s true to life and to human beings.
Andrew, what was your thread for Hank? How did you find him? How did you create the ambiguity within him?
Garfield: Gosh, Jesus Christ.
Roberts: Softball question.
Garfield: He was hiding from himself, and he was obfuscating his own motivations. And he finds the pleasure in rocking everyone’s boat. I like the idea that he’s a very good professor. I like the idea that he would be an inspiring professor to have, with all his subjectively problematic behavior. I think there’s something of a kind of wildness that he has cultivated in himself. He doesn’t want to be extinguished by what he perceives as an overly intellectual, heady culture. I approached it that way, but the ambiguity is really interesting.
How do you play drunk?
Garfield: Oh, you try and act sober. That’s the main thing. No drunk person tries to act drunk. You’re constantly covering up a lack of sobriety.
The press has described “After the Hunt” as a movie about #MeToo. Do you think that’s a fair description?
Guadagnino: I think it’s a bit of a lazy way to describe it. It’s a passé way of thinking.
Edebiri: I think it’s also like saying, “‘The Godfather’ is a movie about an Italian wedding.” There’s so much richness happening in the lives of these characters, genuinely, and that boggles my mind.
Luca, was Amazon MGM ever concerned about the message of this film?
Guadagnino: This was my fourth movie with Amazon. They released “Suspiria,” then “Bones and All,” then “Challengers.” We are never in a place where there is a prescription from the studio: “Do this, and we’re going to be happy.” I can promise you that the creation of the movie, and then the campaign to release the movie, has been made with passion.
Roberts: Also, this was 28 days.
Garfield: Crazy.
Guadagnino: For the record, we were supposed to do it 30. We were two days early. I’m of the Clint Eastwood school.
So you don’t do a lot of takes?
Guadagnino: One, maybe two.
Garfield: Maybe three if you’re really struggling.
Guadagnino: When they say, “Can I do another one?” I roll my eyes. Only because I think the previous one was fantastic. Why you need another one?
Garfield: But he rolls his eyes, and then he says, “Of course.” And then sometimes something happens, but most of the time he’s right — he has it.
Edebiri: We shot on film, which also added to the sacredness of what we were doing and the urgency. You’re in this moment, like, “OK, I’m acting and we’re going to get it.”
Garfield: The knowledge that we’re burning money.
Edebiri: You can hear it.
Does it make you better if you know there won’t be more takes?
Garfield: What is better? For me, it can go one of two ways. You have 1,000 takes, and a lot of them are going to be trash, but you know you’ve left it all on the field. But with one or two takes, you have to get liberated really quick. It puts the screws on you to just be like, “Are you ready? You better be ready, because we’re doing it.”
You were filming in London, but the movie is set at Yale. How did you get into the headspace of being elite professors in New Haven?
Roberts: Well, he built Yale in London. They built the entire restaurant, the Indian restaurant, on the backlot.
Guadagnino: It’s the exact reproduction of Tandoor in New Haven. We got permission to reproduce it.
Sevigny: We also shot in Cambridge.
Guadagnino: I studied cinema all my life, and I always tried to understand how these good filmmakers that I worship and love had made possible for them to make the movie they made. What is the means of production? How someone can make a movie that is as sophisticated and yet as well done as Mike Nichols? And I think there is a lot of relation between that and the studio and the conversation with the studio. We have been very privileged because our studio, MGM, supported the vision. They were really like, “Yeah, go for it.”
You brought up Mike Nichols. Julia, you worked with Mike on “Closer” and “Charlie Wilson’s War.” Did working with Luca on such a meaty role remind you of your collaborations with Mike?
Roberts: It did, really. We’ve talked about it, and at the risk of my fatigue taking over my emotions, I was actually saying to a friend last night, “It’s a moment like this that I miss Mike the most.” [Stops herself from crying.] I wish that he could see this movie, and that’s all I’m going to say.
Julia, how did you approach a character like Alma — and all her different layers?
Roberts: The hardest part for me was not being sympathetic and empathetic. For me as a person, it’s like, “Oh, how can I hold her?” And she was not to be held. This was not the time. I have a very hen-like personality; I want to gather, and I want to feed and care. And she’s just the opposite of every instinct I’ve ever had in my life.
And I think there were times where I just found it really exhausting; the mental gymnastics of the way she lives her life is very unfamiliar to me. So having Luca keep me on the right rails at all times. And then, it’s a playground. I don’t mean to single you out, Michael, but I go into these scenes with Michael, and I just turn to Luca and I’m like, “Are you fucking kidding me?” What he’s doing is so unexpected and original, and I’m just watching him. I’m not even in the scene anymore, because it’s so fucking unreal what you’re doing right now.
Stuhlbarg: It goes both ways. I guess the only thing I’d have to offer to that is that what you bring is breathless for all of us. Your gifts are endless, and what you offer — your love and your magic — it’s beyond what my workmanship can provide.
Sevigny: Can I say when we left, I needed more Julia. On the plane ride home, I watched, like, three of your movies. I just wanted more!
Which three?
Sevigny: “Notting Hill,” “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and I can’t remember the third. But I was like, “I just want more Julia!”
Roberts: [Actually tears up.] I am so glad this is being recorded.
Sevigny: I was like, “I’m not ready to say goodbye.” Luckily there’s a whole canon I can go home and keep watching.
Did it make you feel closer to her?
Sevigny: I mean, I felt close to her the first time I met her. But she invited us to her home for rehearsals, and we stayed in her beach house. And she was just very giving and generous.
Guadagnino: You have to know something about Julia. She’s an incredible cook. She does an amazing salmon, but she also does an incredible banana bread.
Roberts: French toast.
Guadagnino: Oh, of course. I’m not vegan; I cannot do dairy, just, on the record. I don’t want to be vegan. Don’t say that I’m vegan! The point being that Julia is, like, amazing. She’s a friend, she’s a mother, she cares for people. Spending time with her in their private life is amazing. Being in the house is amazing. Doing things with Julia is amazing, and then she shows up on set. And the day after, she knows every single person in the crew’s name, and it’s not an affectation. She’s actually curious. She wants to know. You knew every single person before I did.
Roberts: Very hard table to sit at.
Guadagnino: And I have a last, lovely thing. We went to promote “Queer,” and we went to San Francisco, and Julia hosted a screening for me and Daniel [Craig]. And then she brought me banana bread. We were staying at your house, me and the production designer Stefano Baisi. I was living in Phinn’s room?
Roberts: You were in Hazel’s room, and he was in Phinn’s room.
Guadagnino: Yes. And we were sharing their bathroom. And then we left for Italy. And in the morning, there was a banana bread. Two loafs. So I ate one with Stefano, and the second one we took, and we were at the lounge waiting, and the staff of the lounge came to me: “Oh, it looks very beautiful.” I said, “Try it.” They came back, “Who did this? This is the most beautiful banana bread.” They don’t know it was Julia’s banana bread, but people were starstruck by the banana bread.
That’s true star power. Are you going to franchise this?
Guadagnino: The banana bread? We should.
Edebiri: You enacted the businessman.
Garfield: Billion-dollar idea.
Since we mentioned “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” there’s been talk of a sequel. Has anyone approached you yet? Or are you not going to be in it?
Roberts: No, they’re talking to me.
Guadagnino: Can I …
Sevigny: He wants to direct it.
Can Luca direct it?
Guadagnino: In a second.
Garfield: Oh my God, that’s fantastic.
Roberts: Not to take away from any of the kind things the rest of you are saying, because honestly, my loving cup is so full that it’s running over, as you can see. But I was so excited and intimidated about meeting Chloë. And when we were at my house, we’re all sitting around the kitchen table, and Hazel was making herself some lunch, and we’re talking about the material and rehearsing. Allan [Mandelbaum], our producer, he came in, and he goes, “Chloë should just be here in a couple minutes.” And I look up, and Ayo looks up, and we match eyes. Luca goes, “What?” And I go, “I’m scared.” And Ayo goes, “Me too.” And Hazel goes, “I’m leaving.” And then, like a minute later, the doorbell rang, and Hazel goes, “I’m leaving through the garage.” And truly we were so excited and intimidated.
Garfield: We’re giving you all the best stories.
Chloë, can you talk to me about the wig that you wear in the film?
Sevigny: Well, Luca likes to fuck with my hair. He likes the transformation. But on this one, he wanted to go even further. Luckily, we pulled it back.
Guadagnino: They made a prosthetic. Could you be a 78-year-old therapist?
Roberts: I thought it was amazing.
Guadagnino: And it was amazing.
Sevigny: I couldn’t move my face. I couldn’t express. I couldn’t act. I looked like a cross between Al Pacino and … I don’t know.
And you would have done the whole movie in full prosthetics?
Guadagnino: Yes. But the good news about making tests is that you test and you say, “yes,” “no,” “maybe.” We tried.
Sevigny: But Luca works with the same costume designer and hair and makeup team. That’s where it all begins.
Guadagnino: Should we talk about Fernanda?
Roberts: Yes, the hair and makeup team that Luca has are unparalleled. They’re like butterflies. You don’t even know what they’re doing, and suddenly your job is half done. When Luca was first talking to me about Fernanda [Perez] and Massimo [Gattabrusi], we had this conversation — and at this point, our relationship hadn’t had so much as a hiccup. We get off the phone, and I called Bryan and I said, “I have hair and makeup, and I don’t want to upset Luca.” And then he called you, and you called me and said, “Whoever you want.” Turns out my hair and makeup had scheduling conflicts, and then I had no one. I was like, “I was just kidding. I want your hair and makeup.”
Guadagnino: It’s about companionship and partnership. I met Fernanda in 1995 when I was 24 and we did a short film together, and never parted ways since then.
Luca, is Chloë going to be in your new take on “American Psycho”? She was in the original, after all.
Guadagnino: I don’t talk about “American Psycho.”
Sevigny: I pitched that I should play the same part.
Guadagnino: The answer is if the movie happens, for sure.
Going back to “After the Hunt,” were you surprised yesterday at the press conference when a journalist interpreted the movie as “anti-feminist”? What did you make of that?
Roberts: I made a meal of it.
Edebiri: I thought you answered it very well.
Roberts: I mean, everybody’s going to have their own opinion. That’s what’s so great about it.
Guadagnino: Can I say something? Two things: One, a movie with these sublimely powerful female characters, how can that be described as anti-feminist? The second thing I want to say: Historically, feminism, as we know, has gone from places in the world and affirmed amazing forward thinking through history, but also created many different waves of feminism.
But what I’m trying to say is the idea that something is anti-feminist is a bit generic, and also is so devoid of the pleasure of watching the movie, because look at the fucking movie and enjoy the story of these people. Don’t think about a generic thing that doesn’t exist, historically, socially, philosophically. So it’s a lazy question.
Roberts: No, Luca … [She laughs.]
Edebiri: But I do think the women who are portraying these women are deeply intelligent and deeply empowered. When I sit at this table and I look at Chloë and I look at Julia, these are not just girls who are like, “Yeah, do whatever you want.” That framing takes away our agency as well, and it takes away nuance, and I don’t think that that’s fair to any of us.
Roberts: I love you.
From Variety US