Ayo Edebiri Is Luca Guadagnino’s Latest Cinematic Obsession

“I really do love a character,” said Ayo Edebiri on a rainy winter’s day in Italy. She was wearing a seafoam green Chanel skirt with a matching jacket that was covered in sheared faux fur. Her hair was teased into a soft 1960s updo and diamonds shined on her earlobes—and yet, despite all this extravagance, her expression was sad. “I’m an Italian widow,” explained Edebiri. “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.”

Edebiri, who, at 29, has won both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for outstanding supporting actress and best female actor, respectively, for her work on The Bear, had flown to this lavish estate outside of Milan from her home in Los Angeles to be photographed by the director Luca Guadagnino. In the past year, Guadagnino has released two highly praised—and very different—films: 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. Like all of Guadagnino’s films, both Queer and Challengers boast memorable performances. Daniel Craig, who accepted his role in Queer even before he had read the script, said, “I was dying to work with him.”

Edebiri was similarly excited when she received the script for After the Hunt, Guadagnino’s next film, which comes out this fall. “I was in Chicago shooting The Bear,” she said days after the shoot in Italy. “Luca and I met over Zoom and ended up talking for two hours about the script and life and films.” Oddly, Guadagnino had not seen The Bear, in which Edebiri plays the sous chef in an extremely tense and emotionally charged restaurant kitchen. “I had seen Ayo in Bottoms,” he said. “And I immediately thought, Who is she? Where is she? I needed to meet her!” Bottoms, a 2023 comedy, is about a group of gay high school girls who decide to start a fight club to hang out with their cheerleader-esque crushes. Edebiri made the film with her former NYU classmates, including the actor and comedian Rachel Sennott. “We started out in comedy together,” explained Edebiri. “I had acted as a child in elementary and middle school, but my first jobs were in improvisation and as a stand-up comedian. At NYU, I changed my major from education to dramatic writing. At first, out of college, I was getting writing jobs. Although acting was my first love, it has been something of a surprise.”

In Italy, pouring rain had driven the photo shoot for W inside a kind of stable. “My horses were here,” said Edebiri, again adopting the somewhat lost attitude of her character. She was now wrapped in a tan trenchcoat by The Row. At Guadagnino’s request, Edebiri thrust her hands into her pockets, leaned on one hip, and stared with a slightly haunted expression toward a corner of the room. Guadagnino was ecstatic. “Ayo is a movie star in the real sense of bigness, and cinema, and excitement,” he said. “She has a commitment toward performance that you rarely find now. She absolutely commands your gaze. She’s funny and she’s extremely beautiful—and that is a very rare combination.”

For this photo story, Guadagnino wanted to conjure and pay homage to his favorite actors from the ’60s. “I especially love Sophia Loren,” he said. “And, of course, Ingrid Bergman.” This split between actors of different nationalities is indicative of Guadagnino’s international spirit and approach. He has made films in Italy (among them Call Me by Your Name and A Bigger Splash) and also in America (Bones and All, for which he won the Silver Lion for Best Director prize at the Venice Film Festival, and now After the Hunt, which was shot in San Francisco). He spent his early childhood in Ethiopia, and one of the first films that overwhelmed him was Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O’Toole. “That was cinema itself,” he recalled. “I was drowning in the face of Peter O’Toole. And I was also certainly obsessed with the vastness of the desert in that movie. I’ve never fully recovered from the power of that moment—and I hope I never do.”

Ever since his earliest directing efforts, Guadagnino has been compelled by location, by the environments of his characters. For Queer, he re-created midcentury Mexico City at the Cinecittà Studios, in Rome; for Challengers, he found inspiration in parts of Boston. “What I’m drawn to is the space becoming a character in the film,” he explained. “The location, for me, is always a projection of the unconscious of the character in the film. For instance, when I was asked to remake the movie La Piscine, I resisted the idea. I didn’t really like the original film, but I did like the idea of a cruel game between four characters. But my version, A Bigger Splash, absolutely had to be set on the island of Pantelleria, which has a violent wind. That location became as important as the characters.” Oddly, for a person who seems utterly fearless, Guadagnino is nervous around water. “I can’t swim,” he explained. “Being in a boat is quite fascinating and terrifying for me. I look at the sea and I see my certain demise: I will drown. But I also love the beauty of the water. It is a central contradiction in my life.”

Guadagnino was momentarily distracted by Edebiri, who was now in a shirred orange Bottega Veneta gown. He directed her to stand in a hallway and put her hands to her forehead, palm sides out. The fabric draped beautifully, which created a kind of dramatic scene. “The impact of the location is meaningful in this shoot also,” continued Guadagnino. “If we were anywhere other than right here, the emotion would not be as strong.”

I asked Guadagnino if he prefers to make films in America or Italy. “Most of my friends are American,” he replied. “And my goal was always to be part of Hollywood. I moved to Italy when I was 6 or 7, and I learned English by forcing myself to watch American movies that had not been dubbed. Now I dream in English. Until a few years ago, I dreamed in Italian, but now it’s all English. Sometimes I even struggle to understand emails that are written in Italian! It’s very strange.”

As Edebiri put on a cozy-looking Alaïa coat made of loops of pink yarn, she lost her character’s unhappy demeanor. “The secret of acting that they don’t tell you is that when you’re playing a scene that’s meant to be freezing, it will be the hottest day of the year,” she said. “And I’m supposed to be sad right now, but I love this cozy coat so much—how could I be anything but happy?” Guadagnino posed Edebiri on a matching pink sofa, one long arm outstretched, her face surrounded by woolliness. She looked wistful again.

“Ayo is also a director,” said Guadagnino. “And she thinks like one.” In fact, 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!”

Edebiri slipped into a black, very short Celine dress that showed off her fantastic legs, and put on a pair of matching high-heeled pumps. “You have been scorned by your lover,” said Guadagnino, setting the mood. Looking very glamorous but a bit depressed by her character’s circumstances, Edebiri headed up a circular staircase to an uncertain future. She turned back to look at the camera. “What’s important at this shoot is what’s also important in my films,” Guadagnino said. “I always want to show the humanity. My heroes—John Schlesinger, the great Billy Wilder, and others—were all sympathetic and aware. They wanted to get at an emotional truth.”

Edebiri changed into the last look of the day—a long-sleeve, sequined Loewe minidress—and Guadagnino suggested that she fall into a large, leafy bush. Her eyes registered a feeling of resignation: The widow/ex-mistress was accepting the truth of her situation. “I may adore my clothes and my jewels, but I’m by myself now,” said Edebiri. “It’s truly liberating to become someone completely opposite from me.” Guadagnino agreed. “You’re melancholic but fierce—like all the fantastic stars that we love. You are one with them now.”

Style Director: Allia Alliata di Montereale; Fashion Market Editor: Tori López. Hair by Cyndia Harvey at Art Partner; makeup by Lauren Parsons at Art Partner. Production design by Stefano Baisi.

Executive Produced by Farago Projects; Executive Producer: Sylvia Farago; Producers: Lucy Bradley, Brisa Chander; Service Production by Hotel Production; Local producers: Alessandra Gabbetta, Eleonora Giammello, Margherita Zonarelli; Executive Assistant to Luca Guadagnino: Gloria Albanesi; Personal Assistant to Luca Guadagnino: Philip Fajardo; Frenesy Coordinator: Bahiya Mohamedou; Lighting Assistants: Lupo Gelsi, Mattia Gallo; Digital Operator: Giuseppe Fogarizzu; Retouching: Tuesdays; Production assistants: Mattia Raganato, Giovanni Cicogna, Andrea Ghinazzi; Hair assistant: Leanne Millar; Makeup assistant: Lara Weidmann; Tailor: Kristina Sinivaara.