“I was in Chicago shooting ‘The Bear’,” Ayo Edebiri tells Lynn Hirschberg, writing for W Magazine’s March 2025 cover story. “Luca and I met over Zoom and ended up talking for two hours about the script and life and films.”

The script in question is ‘After the Hunt’, directed by Luca Guadagnino, who also photographs Edebiri for W Magazine, as they pay homage to his favorite actors from the ’60s. “I especially love Sophia Loren,” he said. “And, of course, Ingrid Bergman.”

Edebiri was very enthusiastic about the shoot. “It’s truly liberating to become someone completely opposite from me,” she said. Guadagnino agreed. “You’re melancholic but fierce—like all the fantastic stars that we love.”

Edebiri said of her Directors Issue character: “I’m an Italian widow. Or maybe I’m a mistress who has been jilted by her lover. Either way, I’m alone. In my villa. And to keep myself amused, I’m trying on all of my clothes and jewelry, and I’m wandering around the stunning home that I will have to leave behind.”

The clothes and jewelry showcased by Edebiri and styled by Sara Moonves includes Alaïa, Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Celine by Hedi Slimane, Chanel, Gucci, Loewe, Prada, The Row and more. Jewelry is from Cartier exclusively.

Edebiri has won both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for outstanding supporting actress and best female actor, respectively, for her work on ‘The Bear’.

“Ayo is a movie star in the real sense of bigness, and cinema, and excitement,” Luca Guadagnino says about his star. “She has a commitment toward performance that you rarely find now. She absolutely commands your gaze.”

Guadagnino has released two highly praised—and very different—films in the last year: ‘Challengers’, a ménage à trois power struggle set in the world of tennis, and ‘Queer’, an adaptation of the famous William S. Burroughs novel, set in Mexico City in the ’50s.

“Ayo is also a director,” Guadagnino tells Hirschberg. “And she thinks like one.”

The compliment is deserved. In 2025 Edebiri was nominated for a prestigious Directors Guild of America Award for directing an episode of ‘The Bear’.

“Ayo’s like me,” continued Guadagnino. “I try to always multitask, to follow both the horizontal and vertical vectors of time. Currently, I am producing three movies, I’m directing a new film very soon, I’m designing houses and hotels, and my movie After the Hunt comes out in the fall. I prefer to be busy, but film is my first love. Always, always! And I think Ayo will be the same as me. She can do everything!”

Hours ago, ‘After the Hunt’ landed a limited theatrical release date of Oct. 10 from Amazon MGM Studios. Besides Edebiri, Julia Roberts leads a cast that includes Andrew Garfield, Chloë Sevigny, and Michael Stuhlbarg. The film will expand to additional theaters with a nationwide release on Oct. 17.

‘After the Hunt’ focuses on a college professor [Roberts] who is forced to confront her own dark past when a prominent student [Edebiri] makes an accusation against one of her colleagues [Garfield]. The film was shot in London and at Cambridge University.