Julia Roberts turns interpreter for Luca Guadagnino in hilarious Gotham Awards moment

Julia Roberts brought more than star power to the 2025 Gotham Awards—she brought her Italian.

While accepting the Visionary Award alongside filmmaker Luca Guadagnino for their work on After the Hunt, Roberts stepped into an unexpected role onstage.

After Paul Rudd presented the pair with the honour, Roberts announced, “I not only had a great privilege of acting with Luca, but I will be acting as his interpreter.”

Guadagnino delivered his remarks in English, but Roberts turned the moment into a playful bit by translating each line into Italian instead. When he began with, “Thank you Gotham Awards,” Roberts echoed it back—in Italian—earning laughs from the audience before they wrapped up the joke.

Roberts then shifted to a more heartfelt note, reflecting on the creative community and her connection with Guadagnino. 

“Everyone that is here living their creative dreams, thank you for doing that in a world that seems to be crumbling. This is the tape and the glue that keeps it together,” she said.

She added that working with Guadagnino had long been a personal goal: “One of my great dreams was to work with Luca Guadagnino, and now that I’ve done it once, I just wanna keep on doing it.”

Their playful dynamic has been on display before. At the Venice Film Festival in September, Roberts wore a cardigan covered in prints of Guadagnino’s face—a sentimental but humorous gesture.

As she told Vanity Fair, “I love to do things like that during a press tour… I like to have fun and mix it up, and not be serious all the time.”