Julia Roberts responds to 'After the Hunt' controversy, says it was not about "women being pitted against each other"

Actress Julia Roberts attended the Venice Film Festival on August 29, where she spoke about her recent movie, After the Hunt, in which she stars alongside Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri, and others. According to a report by Variety, the movie came under scrutiny for its sentiments about the #MeToo and feminist movements.

The report mentions that a journalist at the festival asked whether the movie invokes obsolete ideas about trusting women about their narratives of s*xual assault. The actress, weighing in on the importance of having deeper conversations about the themes, said:

“But the thing you said that I love is it ‘revives old arguments.’ I don’t think it’s 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.”

Julia Roberts said the best part was that people left the theater talking about the movie, which was exactly how the team wanted it to be. She explained that it made people think about what they truly believed in, and she was glad they could create that feeling. Reflecting on the controversy that the film received, she said:

“I don’t know about controversy, per se, but we are challenging people to have conversation. To be excited or infuriated about it is up to you and if you drink martinis or lemonade after the movie. That’s kind of how I saw it.”

Julia Roberts said that the movie made people engage in dialogue with each other, which she felt was remarkable.

Julia Roberts remembers Tender Mercies at the Venice Film Festival

As seen in a video posted by the YouTube channel Tennessean, Julia Roberts remembered when she first saw the 1983 movie Tender Mercies. She mentioned that the idea of a camera dropping in a certain place, documenting everything that happened around, was magical. She expressed that this is the exact same way she felt about After the Hunt, while adding:

“We are not making statements. 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 and that's what I think is sort of incredible about it.”

In 2024, Julia Roberts was interviewed by Richard Curtis for British Vogue, where Curtis praised Roberts for having a film face. He noted that she is not camera-conscious and could show her best. Reflecting on that, the Notting Hill actress said:

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“Well, it’s funny, because my most technical job is to forget where the camera is. It’s the camera’s responsibility to be in the right place for the scene. That’s not my job. I do think that is a thing that kind of separates actors from non-actors – being able to find the camera, but for it to have no conscious consequence. It doesn’t scare me, it doesn’t comfort me. It’s the documentarian of whatever I’m doing.”

Richard Curtis asked Julia Roberts if being famous from a young age made her feel responsible for how she represented women in her movies and life. Julia replied that what truly showed who she was came more from the things she chose not to do.

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