Ayo Edebiri Recalls Slapping Julia Roberts For ‘After the Hunt’ Scene After Bonding During Rehearsal: “It Was Horrible”

Although the tension between Julia Roberts and Ayo Edebiri‘s After the Hunt characters could be cut with a knife, the pair became fast friends on set.

Leading up to the Luca Guadagnino film’s theatrical release on Oct. 10, Edebiri recalled filming one scene that required her to slap Roberts after the cast and director had built a “safe” place “to take risks” during rehearsals.

“It was horrible. I had to slap literally God’s gift to humanity, Julia Roberts,” she told Vogue.

In After the Huntcollege professor Alma Olsson (Roberts) finds herself at a complicated crossroads when her prized pupil Maggie Price (Edebiri) accuses her colleague Henrik Gibson (Andrew Garfield) of sexual assault, threatening to expose a dark secret from Alma’s own past.

Despite filming in the U.K., Guadagnino noted that rehearsals took place at Roberts’ San Francisco home, “literally at her kitchen table,” over a two-week period.

Edebiri said of the experience, “This sounds so corny and artsy, but we knew we were going to be in really kind of dangerous territory, so it was about making sure that we all felt safe to take risks.”

Roberts felt the same, explaining that she and Edebiri “quickly” bonded. “I felt we went from relative strangers to friends extremely quickly. It was almost bizarre,” she said. “She is incredible to be around—the way her mind works, the way she expresses herself. She’s tremendously engaging.”

Guadagnino recalled the pair enjoying a particularly fun outing one day when shooting was briefly suspended amid a power outage.

“I couldn’t work in the editing room, I couldn’t shoot, I couldn’t do anything,” said Guadagnino. “And then I get a message from Ayo and from Julia saying, ‘Join us. We are at an amusement park.’”