‘After the Hunt’: Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri attempt NYFF reboot — could ‘love and forgiveness’ help the film’s Oscar hopes?
After the Hunt is on the hunt for a fresh start.
Following a rocky reception on the awards circuit at the Venice Film Festival, where the cast struggled through a confrontational press conference and the film was met with poor reviews, director Luca Guadagnino and stars Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, and Andrew Garfield arrived at the New York Film Festival hoping to reset the narrative and get the awards campaign back on track.
After the Hunt was the fest’s opening-night selection and the creative team took the opportunity to attempt to emphasize the challenging nature of the subject matter, which finds Roberts’ character, a Yale professor named Alma, gets caught up in a scandal when one of her top students (Edebiri), accuses Alma’s friend and colleague Hank (Garfield) of inappropriate behavior.
The After the Hunt cast and director at the NYFF premiere
“Everything that is natural to Alma, is unnatural to me as a human. It was interesting trying to find ways into that,” Roberts said, crediting her director and cast, especially Michael Stuhlbarg, who plays her husband in the film, in helping her crack the character. “It all really ended up coming together in finding the inroads with each of the characters with my cast particularly with Michael and his approach to Frederik really helped me figure out how to portray Alma in a lot of ways. It was complicated. It was tricky material for sure.”
Garfield echoed Roberts’ sentiments on the emotional intricacy of the film, while emphasizing the camaraderie that formed behind the scenes. “When you are working with material that is exploring the darker shades or the parts of our collective humanity that we tend to want to avoid looking at we need as much levity and brightness and community togetherness as possible,” he said. “There was a thread running through all of us on set. It was a joyful experience because the ability to explore these aspects of our own humanity with a tether to Luca knowing we are safe to do so, it was deeply pleasurable.”
For Edebiri, the NYFF press conference offered an opportunity to reflect on a viral moment from Venice, when a journalist posed a pointed question to only Roberts and Garfield about the post-#MeToo and Black Lives Matter landscape in Hollywood. At that time, Edebiri replied, “I know that that’s not for me, and I don’t know if it’s purposeful if it’s not for me … [but] I don’t think it’s done. I don’t think it’s done at all.”
When asked in New York if she had anything to add, Edebiri offered a sincere take. “I think I am less online than I used to be,” she said, prompting a few claps from the audience. “Yeah, clap for peace of mind.” She then added, “I think it was just a very human moment, and I think in a strange way uncomfortable conversation is kind of one of the many things our film is about so shout out to tie-ins.”
Roberts — who, per Gold Derby’s prediction data, is currently the film’s best shot at an Oscar nomination, sitting at No. 6 among the Best Actress contenders — also attempted to reframe the themes of the film. After the Hunt was ultimately, she told the Hollywood Reporter, “about love and forgiveness and trying to understand who we really are deep inside of ourselves and why we posture and do the things that we do.”
Later that night, the cast celebrated the New York premiere with a screening at Alice Tully Hall, followed by an afterparty at Tavern on the Green. There, attendees did just as the cast had hoped — engaging in spirited conversations about the film and the provocative questions it poses. Whether that buzz will be enough to revive its awards season prospects remains to be seen.
