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Who is Ayo Edebiri, the endearing actress starring in After the Hunt?
Actress, director, screenwriter, exceptional stand-up comedian… Ayo Edebiri has carved out a place for herself in Hollywood thanks to her multifaceted talents. Revealed by the series The Bear, her versatility has made her one of the new faces of independent cinema, embraced by both the fashion and film industries. Recently named Chanel ambassador, she now stars in Luca Guadagnino’s film After the Hunt, coming out this Tuesday, November 20th, on Amazon Prime Video. Throwback to the meteoric rise and journey of one of the most endearing film stars of her generation.
By Jordan Bako.
In an era where every new breakthrough seems linked to a relative already taking part in the inner workings of the film industry, stories of accidental discovery on screen rekindle hopes. Few are the celebrities who truly came out of nowhere and whose family members aren’t written in blue on Wikipedia.
Moments when we can genuinely fall under the spell of a performer, without wondering whether or not you recognise the features of a famous face in their gaze, smile, or dimple, are rare and precious. That’s exactly the kind of instant crush we had as we discovered Ayo Edebiri in the first season of The Bear.
From NYU classrooms to Hollywood
In the show created by Christopher Storer, American actress Ayo Edebiri dazzles as an aspiring chef whose dreams of glory are partly crushed by her neuroses. Although it is obvious today that the 29-year-old was destined for fame, it wasn’t on a film set that she first discovered her talent for performance.
Ayo Edebiri made her debuts at the altar of her local Pentecostal church in her neighbourhood in Boston. She sang in the choir before turning to comedy and drama during high school. Although Hollywood was just a plane ticket away, stardom still seemed out of reach for the young woman, who first went university in order to become an English teacher.
Born to a Barbadian mother and a Nigerian father, she held her parents’ opinions in high regard. “I remember being really anxious about telling them I didn’t want to be a teacher,” she told The Wall Street Journal. But her parents reassured her and encouraged her to take her great ambitions seriously.
The revelation of the series The Bear
She then decided to switch majors, enrolling in dramatic writing in NYU. Alongside her studies, Ayo Edebiri performed at stand-up venues in New York and joined the cast of the animated series Big Mouth in 2020.
To make ends meet, she worked as a barista in many cafés throughout the Big Apple. Speaking to Vanity Fair about her experience, she shared: “I loved being a barista because I like order. There’s something kind of satisfying about getting it right.”
An Emmy Award-winning actress
A thirst for perfection… That’s perhaps the driving force behind her performance in The Bear, alongside Jeremy Allen White. In the role of young Sydney Adamu, the actress delivers a remarkably honest and moving performance. It’s a role that brought Ayo Edebiri into the spotlight, earning her the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2023.
Another accolade she received thanks to The Bear? She became the first Black woman in the history of the Directors Guild of America Awards to be nominated for “Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Comedy Series”. Indeed, while the third season of the show began to stall in some of its earlier storylines, Ayo Edebiri directed a refreshing sixth episode, focused on the personal story of one of the show’s cooks, played by Liza Cólon-Zayas.
Ayo Edebiri, Hollywood’s loveliest girl next door
Gone are the days when Hollywood celebrities locked away in their ivory towers! Ayo Edebiri belongs to a new generation of stars who feel close to their audiences. Affectionately dubbed the “people’s princess” online, the American actress stands out for her sharp sense of humour – and her hilarious film reviews on the app Letterboxd.
Even with Hollywood’s glitter in her eyes, she hasn’t lost sight of the people who matter most. Many of her college classmates have since become key names in American indie cinema and frequent collaborators, such as Molly Gordon (The Bear) and Rachel Sennott. With the latter, she co-founded a comedy podcast titled Rachel and Ayo Are Single, where the two dissect their romantic mishaps in New York with a great deal of sarcasm.
Perhaps neither one of them imagined they would one day star together in Bottoms (2023), a riotous lesbian and feminist reimagining of Fight Club, directed by Emma Seligman, also a fellow NYU dramatic writing student.
The actress’s projects, from After the Hunt to Ella McCay
Since The Bear, Ayo Edebiri’s career hasn’t slowed down for a minute. Her creative touch can be found in countless cinematic projects. She directed the music video for Terrapin by indie singer Clairo, she made an appearance in Tyler, the Creator’s video for Noid video, and voiced a character in the animated film Inside Out 2 (2024). In addition that, the actress played in The Sweet East (2023) with Jacob Elordi, Opus (2025) with John Malkovich, and Ella McCay (2025) with Emma Mackey.
Ayo Edebiri is currently promoting Luca Guadagnino‘s feature After the Hunt, an on-campus thriller starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Chloë Sevigny. The film premiered out of competition at the 2025 Venice Film Festival and has received mixed reviews so far. In the pages of W Magazine, the director describes Ayo Edebiri as “a movie star in the real sense of bigness, cinema, and excitement.”
A rising star acclaimed by the fashion world
Red carpets are witnessing the emergence of a new star whose style is well worth watching. At the 2025 Golden Globes, the rising actress made a splash wearing a charcoal-grey Loewe suit. A nod to a vintage Armani ensemble worn by Julia Roberts thirty years earlier.
A few months later, she stepped on the Met Gala red carpet in a coral-beaded Ferragamo gown – a tribute to her father and the traditional ensembles worn by the Edo people. Recently, she has become a Chanel ambassador under the creative direction of Matthieu Blazy. All signs point to a rising star with a great destiny…
After the Hunt (2025) by Luca Guadagnino is coming out on Amazon Prime Video on November 20th, 2025.
