Why Julia Roberts and Ayo Edebiri Were ‘Scared’ to Meet Costar Chloë Sevigny

Julia Roberts and Ayo Edebiri were intimated when it came time for them to meet their After the Hunt costar Chloë Sevigny.

When Roberts, 57, appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday, Oct. 1, to discuss her new movie with director Luca Guadagnino, the Academy Award-winning actress shared that neither she nor Edebiri, 30, had worked with Sevigny, 50, before, though Roberts considers Sevigny “fabulous.”

“We were all rehearsing at my house, which was a joy and a privilege, and one afternoon we were rehearsing. We’re at the kitchen table; we’re really grinding it out – not really, but we had our heads down let’s just say — and the producer came in from the living room. He said, ‘Chloë should be here any minute,’ ” Roberts recalled. “And I looked up and my eyes just happened to catch Ayo’s, and we looked at each other. And I said, ‘I’m scared.’ And she goes, ‘Me too.’ And my daughter, who is making herself some lunch, she said, ‘I’m leaving.’ ”

When director Guadagnino, 54, asked the actresses why they were “scared” about Sevigny’s arrival, they responded, “Because it’s Chloë.”

“Here’s the thing about Chloë. First of all, she’s exceptional and eccentric,” Roberts explained to host Stephen Colbert. ” When she [knocked on the door], we all looked at each other, and Luca goes, ‘What? You live here. You have to answer the door.’ So I go to the door, and I make my cheeks pink to make me look fetching and appealing, and I open the door and I say, ‘Hi!’ ”

As Roberts recalled, she greeted Sevigny cheerfully and received a more mellow “Hi” in response from the Boys Don’t Cry actress. “No, she’s so great. I wanted to start crying,” Roberts said. “I think she was just thinking ‘This is where you live?’ ”

Roberts, Edebiri and Sevigny share the screen with Andrew Garfield in After the Hunt, which an official synopsis describes as a psychological drama about “a college professor (Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Garfield), and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come into the light.” Sevigny portrays a psychologist at Yale University and one of Roberts’ character Alma’s friends.

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When Colbert asked Roberts why even her daughter — she shares twins Hazel and Phinnaeus, 20, and son Henry, 18, with husband Danny Moder — left the room when she heard of Sevigny’s arrival, Roberts stressed that Hazel was “vapor trails.”

‘Cause we’re all scared of Chloë. She’s part of the fear,” Roberts explained. “We were all like… Ayo was like, ‘Can I leave?’ Luca says, ‘No!’ ” 

After the Hunt is in theaters in New York and Los Angeles Oct. 10 and expands everywhere Oct. 17.