Ayo Edebiri‘s response to a question about the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, posed to her After the Hunt colleagues, Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield, in a recent interview, has gone viral, as the reporter behind the inquiry is defending her line of questioning.
Federica Polidoro asked Roberts and Garfield, in an on-camera interview where they were joined by fellow star Edebiri, “Now that the #MeToo era and the Black Lives Matters are done, what [do] we have to expect in Hollywood and what we lost if we lost something with the politically correct era?” Polidoro stated her question was specifically directed at Roberts and Garfield, but Edebiri, who looked confused, responded.
After raising her hand, she began, “I know that that’s not for me and I don’t know if it’s purposeful that it’s not for me but I just am curious.”
She continued, “I don’t think it’s done. I don’t think it’s done at all. I think maybe hashtags might not be used as much, but I do think that there’s work being done by activists, by people, every day, that’s beautiful, important work that’s not finished, that’s really, really, really active for a reason, because this world is really charged. And that work isn’t finished at all. Maybe there’s not mainstream coverage in the way that there might have been, daily headlines in the way that it might have been eight or so years ago, but I don’t think it means that the work is done. That’s what I would say.”
Garfield agreed, saying, the “movements are still absolutely alive, as you say, just maybe not as labeled or covered or magnified as much.”
Two days after the interview was posted to ArtsLifeTV’s YouTube channel, Polidoro, who previously contributed to The Hollywood Reporter‘s now-defunct Italian publication, THR Roma, defended her line of questioning and said she had “been subjected to personal insults and attacks because of a question that, for some reason, was not well received by some members of the public.”
“I am not aware of any protocol that dictates the order in which questions must be asked in an interview,” she wrote in part on her Instagram account. “Censoring or delegitimizing questions considered ‘uncomfortable’ does not fall within the practice of democracy.”
She continued, suggesting that she’s neither racist nor xenophobic, and cited her extensive, long career.
“To those who unjustly accuse me of racism, I would like to clarify that in my work I have interviewed people of every background and ethnicity, and my own family is multi-ethnic, matriarchal, and feminist, with a significant history of immigration,” she wrote. “I have collaborated for over 20 years with numerous national and international publications of all political orientations, always approaching my work with openness and professional rigor. In my view, the real racists are those who see racism everywhere and seek to muzzle journalism, limiting freedom of analysis, critical thinking and the plurality of perspectives.”
The Luca Guadagnino-directed, Nora Garrett-written After the Hunt, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and is set to open the New York Film Festival, is a psychological thriller about a college professor (Roberts) whose star student (Edebiri) makes an accusation against one of her colleagues (Andrew Garfield) as a dark secret from the professor’s past threatens to emerge. Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny round out the cast.
Ironically, the Amazon MGM Studios film’s tagline is “not everything is supposed to make you comfortable.”
During a press conference in Venice, Roberts was asked if the #MeToo thriller could be considered anti-feminist and she embraced the film’s ability to spark discussions.
“There’s a lot of old arguments that get rejuvenated in this movie in a way that does create conversation,” she said. “The best part of your question is you talking about how you all came out of the theater talking about [the film], and that’s how we wanted it to feel — that everybody comes out with all these different feelings, emotions, and points of view. You realize what you believe in strongly and what your convictions are because we stir it all up for you.”
The movie is set to hit theaters in New York and L.A. on Oct. 10 before expanding a week later.
