{"id":184621,"date":"2025-08-29T13:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T13:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/184621\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T13:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T13:05:10","slug":"julia-roberts-defends-after-the-hunt-against-metoo-questions-at-venice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/184621\/","title":{"rendered":"Julia Roberts Defends After the Hunt Against #MeToo Questions at Venice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJulia Roberts<\/a> defended her new film \u201cAfter the Hunt<\/a>\u201d at a heated Venice Film Festival<\/a> press conference, where the star was questioned about the movie\u2019s statements surrounding the #MeToo movement and cancel culture.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the thriller, set in the world of higher education, Roberts stars as a beloved college professor who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when her mentee (Ayo Edebiri) accuses a friend and colleague (Andrew Garfield) of crossing a line.<\/p>\n

\n\tRoberts waved off an early question about whether \u201cAfter the Hunt\u201d was undermining the feminist movement. The journalist who raised the question said the movie had \u201ccaused controversy\u201d among festivalgoers who felt the story \u201crevives old arguments\u201d about believing woman who speak up about sexual assault allegations. Though Roberts didn\u2019t directly address the query, the actor said she wants the movie to bring up difficult conversations.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNot to be disagreeable, because it\u2019s not in my nature,\u201d Roberts said with a laugh, \u201cbut the thing you said that I love is it \u2018revives old arguments.\u2019 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just reviving an argument of women being pitted against each other or not supporting each other. There are a lot of old arguments that get rejuvenated that creates conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRoberts continued, \u201cThe best part of your question is that you all came out of the theater talking about it. That\u2019s how we wanted it to feel. You realize what you believe in strongly because we stir it all up for you. So, you\u2019re welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked again about the topic, Roberts denied that the film was attempting to stoke controversy and lamented that society is \u201closing the art of conversation in humanity right now.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re not making statements; we are portraying these people in this moment in time,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know about controversy, per se, but we are challenging people to have conversation. To be excited or or infuriated about it is up to you. If making this movie does anything, getting everybody to talk to each other is the most exciting thing that I think we could accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThen she jabbed, \u201cI love the softball questions early in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGuadagnino described the film as \u201clooking at people in their truths. It\u2019s not that one truth is most important, it\u2019s how we see the clash of truths and what is the boundary of these truths together. It\u2019s not about making a manifesto to revive old-fashioned values.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAfter the Hunt\u201d is playing out of competition at Venice, which is currently in full swing with recent and upcoming premieres of Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone\u2019s conspiracy thriller \u201cBugonia,\u201d George Clooney and Adam Sandler\u2019s road-trip dramedy \u201cJay Kelly,\u201d Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s \u201cThe House of Dynamite\u201d and Dwayne \u201cthe Rock\u201d Johnson\u2019s MMA drama \u201cThe Smashing Machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGuadagnino was last at Venice with \u201cQueer,\u201d a romantic period drama starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey. The Italian auteur has a long history with the festival, having premiered such films as 2022\u2019s \u201cBones and All,\u201d 2018\u2019s \u201cSusperia\u201d remake, 2015\u2019s \u201cA Bigger Splash\u201d and others on the Lido. Meanwhile, Roberts, Garfield and Edebiri are making their Venice Film Festival debut with \u201cAfter the Hunt,\u201d which premieres on Friday evening.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a rare moment of levity at the otherwise tense press conference, Roberts asked her fellow cast members to simultaneously open the cans of water placed in front of them so \u201cthe noise doesn\u2019t disrupt the incredible things we\u2019re about to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGarfield joked, \u201cIt was like that every day on set. When her can had to be opened, everyone\u2019s had to be opened. That\u2019s the microcosm of Julia Roberts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Julia Roberts defended her new film \u201cAfter the Hunt\u201d at a heated Venice Film Festival press conference, where…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":184622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[47631,171,6667,67,132,68,30989],"class_list":{"0":"post-184621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-after-the-hunt","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-julia-roberts","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-venice-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115112203007931984","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}