Julia Roberts Defends New Film as It Brings #MeToo Questions

Julia Roberts is defending her new movie After the Hunt as reporters questioned its stance on the #MeToo movement.

The actress, 56, joined costars Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri, Michael Stuhlbarg, Nora Garrett, Chloë Sevigny and director Luca Guadagnino for a press conference at the Venice International Film Festival on Friday, Aug. 29.

Roberts fielded questions from a reporter who suggested some have felt the film “undermines feminist principles and undermines the feminist struggle” in a post-#MeToo world.

“I think, not to be disagreeable, because it’s not in my nature, but I would say the thing you just said that I love is that it ‘revives old arguments,’ ” Roberts responded. “I don’t necessarily think it’s reviving just an argument of women being pitted against each other or not supporting each other. There’s a lot of old arguments that get rejuvenated in this movie in a way that that does creates conversation.”

“The best part of your question is you talking about how you all came out of the theater talking about it, and that’s how we wanted it to feel, that everybody comes out with all these different feelings and emotions and points of views and things that you realize what you believe in strongly. Because we stir it all up for you,” she continued. “So, you’re welcome,” Roberts added with a laugh.

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After the Hunt follows Roberts as an Ivy League professor who “finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (Edebiri) makes an accusation against one of her colleagues (Garfield), and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come to light,” according to a synopsis.

When Roberts was asked a similar question regarding whether the movie will prove controversial, she quipped, “I love the softball questions early in the morning,” before continuing with her answer by comparing After the Hunt to the 1983 Robert Duvall movie Tender Mercies.

Roberts said that in both Tender Mercies and After the Hunt, a “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, is that we’re not making statements,” Roberts said. “We are portraying these people in this moment in time, and the camera has fallen from the sky in this particular moment and captures all this. … I think in that regard, I don’t know about controversy, per se, but we are challenging people to have conversation, and to be excited or or infuriated about it is up to you.”

She added, “It’s not so much that we’re making a statement, we’re just sharing these lives for this moment and then 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, and if making this movie does anything, getting everybody to talk to each other is the most exciting thing that I feel we could accomplish,” she added.

After the Hunt is in select theaters Oct. 10, then everywhere Oct. 17.