Ayo Edebiri’s viral exchange with an Italian reporter about the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movement was “a very human moment,” Edebiri said at a press conference for After the Hunt at the 2025 New York Film Festival today.

“I’m less online than I used to be,” Edebiri responded, when Decider asked if she saw the online reaction to an interview in which a reporter asked what’s next for Hollywood, now that the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements are “over.”

“I didn’t really, to be completely honest—and I love to lie, I make money on it! But yeah I didn’t really pay too much attention,” Edebiri continued. “I think it was just a very human moment. I think, in a strange way [it was] an uncomfortable conversation, and that was one of the many things our film is about. So, shout-out to tie-ins.”

Edebiri joined her fellow After the Hunt cast members Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, along with director Luca Guadagnino and writer Nora Garrett, on stage for a press conference following a press screening of the film at the 2025 New York Film Festival. The film stars Julia Roberts as a respected college professor who finds herself in a tricky situation when her star student (Ayo Edebiri) accuses her friend and colleague (Andrew Garfield) of sexual assault.

A junket interview from film’s premiere at Venice Film Festival went viral earlier this month, when Italian entertainment journalist Federica Polidoro asked Garfield, Roberts, and Edebiri about “what we lost during the politically correct era, and what we have to expect in Hollywood after the #MeToo movement and the Black Lives Matters [sic] are done.”

All three actors looked surprised by the question, and Roberts asked the reporter to clarify who she was speaking to.

“The question was for Julia and Andrew,” Polidoro replies. “Now that the #MeToo era and the Black Lives Matters are done, what we have to expect in Hollywood, and what we lost, if we lost something, with the politically correct era.

At this point, Edebiri speaks up to say, “Sorry, I know that’s not for me, and I don’t know if it’s purposeful not for me, I am just curious—I don’t think it’s done. I don’t think it’s done at all. I think maybe hashtags might not be use as much, but there’s work being done by activists every day that’s beautiful, important work, that’s not finished, that’s really, really active for a reason. Because this world is really charged. That work isn’t finished at all.”

Both Garfield and Roberts backed up Edebiri’s answers, and the clip went viral, with many accusing the reporter of racial bias.

After the Hunt will be released via Amazon MGM Studios in select U.S. theaters on October 10, and go wide on October 17. After the theatrical run, After the Hunt will stream on MGM+ first, and then on Amazon Prime Video.