Even Julia Roberts gets intimidated sometimes.
The Oscar winner, 57, currently leads Luca Guadagnino’s newest film After the Hunt. The drama follows a college professor (Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (Ayo Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Andrew Garfield).
Appearing Thursday on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, host Colbert confronted Roberts about a rumor he had heard.
“I understand there was one cast member, so I hear, that was intimidating to you, which I find hard to believe,” he said.
“The fabulous Chloë Sevigny, who I had never met before and Ayo had never met before, and Luca has worked with a number of times because she’s fabulous,” Roberts said.
Sevigny plays Roberts’s character’s close friend and colleague, Dr. Kim Sayers, in the film.
“We were all rehearsing at my house, which was a joy and a privilege, and one afternoon we were rehearsing, we were at the kitchen table and you know we’re really grinding it out — not really, but we had our heads down, let’s just say — and the producer came in from the living room and he said, ‘Oh, Chloë should be here any minute.’
“I looked up and my eyes just happened to catch Ayo’s eyes. We looked at each other and I said, ‘I’m scared!’ And she goes, ‘Me too.’”
The Pretty Woman actor recalled Guadagnino asking why they were scared.
“Because it’s Chloë,” Roberts explained. “She’s exceptional and eccentric.”
The next moment, Sevigny was knocking at her door. “And we all looked at each other,” the Notting Hill star remembered, after which Guadagnino reminded her, “You live here. You have to answer the door!”
Roberts finally made her way to the door, pinching her cheeks to make herself “look fetching and appealing,” before opening it and greeting Sevigny with an enthusiastic, “Hi!” The Emmy-nominated Monsters actor, however, allegedly responded with a plain and subdued “Hi.”
Laughing at the memory, Roberts assured that Sevigny is “so great.”
Colbert stepped in to suggest that maybe the Russian Doll alum was also intimidated to meet Roberts, and was “just putting on the cool.”
“No, I want to start crying,” the Erin Brockovich star added humorously. “I think she was thinking, ‘This is where you live?’”
Of her daughter, Hazel, who was also there at the time, Roberts recounted that she was “vapor trails” when Sevigny arrived.
“Because we’re all scared of Chloë. [Hazel] is part of the fear!” she exclaimed. Even “Ayo was like, ‘Can I leave?’ Luca said, ‘No!’”
The Oscar-nominated director’s latest film has divided critics, with some describing it as “a captivating drama,” while others found it “languid” and “weirdly muddled.”
After the Hunt is expected to have a limited release in theaters beginning October 10.
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