In 2017, Call Me by Your Name entered the coming-of-age canon and for those reaching adulthood at the same time, it struck a different kind of chord. As a high school senior in Northern Michigan, Will Price felt a kinship with Luca Guadagnino’s filmmaking, pulled towards his authentic depiction of vulnerability and the fleeting nature of youth. Fast forward just a few years, and Price considers the Italian auteur as both a collaborator and friend. Starring alongside Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri in Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, Price joined a stellar ensemble telling a story steeped in the power, privilege and morality of America’s academic elite. Guadagnino is far from the only filmmaker to recognise Price’s on-screen presence, since graduating in 2022, the actor has appeared in Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, taken on the role of legendary producer Joe Boyd in James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, and starred in Tim Robinson’s surreal series, The Chair Company. Next comes a reunion with Guadagnino and Garfield in Artificial, the director’s upcoming exploration of Silicon Valley and the AI boom – delving into the ambition, ego and morals of the individuals shaping our future.

Ella Joyce: Hey, Will. How are you doing?
Will Price: I’m good. It’s a slow start to the morning. My girlfriend’s doing a Broadway show right now and Monday’s her day off, so I feel like I’ve adopted a similar routine. I’m in New York at the moment. I live in LA, but I’m here for the time being.

EJ: You were born in Ohio – what was it like growing up in the Midwest?
WP: I grew up in the Cleveland area of Ohio. I’m very proud to be from there. The Cleveland area has a lot of art, The Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Museum of Art are really incredible, and there’s this huge theatre district that all the travelling shows come through. Growing up there, I actually felt super artistically enriched. My family still lives there, and I think it’s a great place, but I just knew that I wanted to do my thing elsewhere.

EJ: Growing up with an awareness of the arts, was film always on your radar?
WP: Movies were a big way in which my dad and I connected. I remember growing up, if there was a big movie coming out, he would get tickets to the midnight showing and we’d go together. Usually, it was more of a popcorn-type movie. I don’t think my film knowledge started to grow until I got to high school. But, as a little kid, I remember we saw The Dark Knight on opening night. Movies really became how I made sense of the world.

“I just want to keep doing things that feel different. Once I’ve done something, I want to do my best to try to run in the opposite direction and not repeat myself.”

EJ: In those high school years, was there anything you were watching that felt particularly formative?
WP: I went to an arts boarding high school in Northern Michigan, so I was sixteen when I left home. All of a sudden, I was surrounded by kids from all over the world, and that’s when I felt like I started to figure out what my taste was. My senior year of high school was the year of Call Me by Your Name and Lady Bird. I think the coming-of-age movie that is around at the time you are coming of age might mean more to you. I remember those films being the first time I was like, “These feel like they’re speaking to me.” I remember seeing Manchester by the Sea at school, and really loving that. I took a class on film called ‘The Arc of the Teenager’, and we watched all of these movies about being a teenager through the different eras. It was as far-reaching as American Graffiti to the Sidney Poitier movie, To Sir, with Love. Going to school there really opened up my worldview – all of a sudden I had teachers being like, “We’re gonna watch The Lion in Winter.” [laughs]

EJ: You graduated from college in 2022, which was just four years ago, and you’ve already built up quite the resume.
WP: I started working right away and I’ve been able to work with some really great people. Scarlett [Johansson] on her film, and then in the Bob Dylan movie. That summer, I got to work with Luca [Guadagnino] for the first time too, which really opened things up.

EJ: I loved A Complete Unknown. You played Joe Boyd in the movie – what was it like being on that set?
WP: I’m a massive Bob Dylan fan and just a fan of that era. I didn’t have many credits when I auditioned. Originally, I read for Peter Yarrow or something, I did a tape, and I knew I wasn’t really right for that role. Then they came back, and they were like, “Do you want to play this?” He’s in like two scenes, but it’s a really big moment. I mean, to be with Edward Norton, I was like, “Sure, of course.” They shot that Newport Folk Festival sequence over the course of around ten days. It was all night shoots, and I was just sitting in the tent for ten days, because I had to be in the background of a lot of shots whenever they’d pan the crowd. I think a lot of people were sort of like, “Why is he here? Why is he in the tent?” [laughs] Then on the last day of filming, the sun was coming up, and it was the last scene they needed to shoot for the day. It was the climax for the Pete Seeger character. I remember you could feel a bit of tension on set. It felt like a real coming of age as an actor. I was so nervous because I didn’t want to fuck it up, but then once the scene started to flow, I sensed people begin to relax. I’m really proud of being in a movie that I really love. A few months later, when I was on set with Andrew Garfield, Julia Roberts and all of those people, I felt like it was a good experience to carry with me into that.

EJ: Before we get into your work with Luca, I wanted to touch on your role in The Chair Company…
WP: I always really liked Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin’s work. I think they’re real geniuses at what they do. When I was initially figuring out whether I was going to be a part of the show, they told me that it was gonna feel like Tim doing Fargo or Punch Drunk Love. When you watch the show, it has a real David Lynch, uncanny valley quality to it. Weirdly, my job on that show, is just to play it as natural as possible, because Tim exists in his own world. So if you play it really straight and take things as they are, it starts to become really funny.

EJ: A couple of your projects straddle the thriller genre; your most recent project, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, is a crime thriller set in the city. Do you find yourself drawn to projects that have that edge to them? Or, has it just fallen that way?
WP: I think right now it’s just sort of happened that way. I’m not in the place quite yet where I’m picking or pursuing. But I do gravitate towards strong writing. With something like Pickpocket, I remember reading it and Noah [Segan], the director, wrote this very lean script, it’s 80-something pages, and it just moves, there’s no fat. It is in the vein of the New York movies that I love, like After Hours. It’s quirky, it’s fun, and it’s a thriller, but it’s a thriller that moves at the pace of an older gentleman, which I really like. As opposed to the breakneck pace of something like The Chair Company. It premiered at Sundance, and I’m really proud of it – John [Turturro] is incredible in it.

EJ: Let’s talk about your projects with Luca. You mentioned earlier that Call Me by Your Name was one of your coming-of-age movies. What was it like getting to be on set with him?
Will: For years, he was the top director that I really wanted to work with. I felt very kindred watching his work. His films have this emotion to them, oftentimes through characters’ relationships to the ‘other’ – it makes for a really interesting movie and a really interesting working experience. I really love him, and he’s been instrumental in my development as a young actor. He’s so much fun to work with. Being on set with him opens you up to understanding all the different ways that a scene can develop. Working on After the Hunt was probably the biggest shift I’ve ever felt as an actor, because he had this trust. I was super nervous and overwhelmed because it’s all these people that I admire so much. He was really encouraging and generous with his energy, and he has trust in his own genius and his own ability, which is really rare and special.

EJ: I re-watched After the Hunt last week, and I love the way it explores privilege and power dynamics in this twisted world of academia. Do you remember your first reaction to reading that script?
WP: I really love that movie. There’s a fascinating dynamic going on where these people exist in these hypothetical conversations about morality, ethics, and just being a person that completely fails when it’s put into practice – they become animalistic and inept at hypothetically dealing with these things when presented with it in the real world. It’s a testament to Luca, because when I first read the script, on the surface, I read it as like, “Oh, this is great writing. Nora [Garrett] is a great writer. These are interesting characters, and it’s a movie about the tension between speaking up about something that could negatively impact you.” That’s very rudimentary. Upon the revisions that started happening on set, and the changes that Luca was making as a director, all of a sudden, the film took on this added third layer. I think it’s a movie that’s going to age really well – he’s saying something really complex with it.

EJ: In so many of Luca’s films, so much of that tension arises because his scores are always so brilliant. In After the Hunt, there is that repetitive tick-tock; in Challengers, Trent Reznor creates this pacey momentum.
WP: I agree, he has some of the best needle drops in movies in recent memory.

EJ: The cast for After the Hunt was pretty major. What was it like getting to work opposite Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri?
WP: All of them are great, and all of them are actors I’d admired for a long time. The Social Network was one of the first adult movies I watched as a kid, so Andrew was someone I really looked up to. And obviously, Julia Roberts is Julia Roberts. On my first day, I was super nervous, and I had a very wordy bit of dialogue to get out. It was the scene in the classroom where we were talking to Julia. I was struggling, and I wasn’t doing well. Luca pulled me aside and was like, “Will, what’s going on?” I was just honest and said, “I’m really fucking nervous.” He’s like, “OK, it’s good to be nervous. Do you see Julia? All you have to be is as good as Julia.” And then he sent me back in. It was refreshing not to have someone entertain my nerves, he was just like, “That’s a good thing. Now go do the scene. I want you to be in the movie.” But he was also realistic, like, “If you can’t say the lines, that will be a problem.” It was a cheekiness and an honesty that I really appreciated. From that moment, I felt like I was really comfortable. I learned a lot from watching Julia, just the way she carried herself. All of them, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny, Julia, Andrew and Ayo. That scene in the house at the beginning of the film, watching the way everybody worked and the way that scene was crafted is something I’ll never forget. Everyone has a different process, and everyone’s working in their own way. It was really cool.

“He’s [Luca Guadagnino] so much fun to work with. Being on set with him opens you up to understanding all the different ways that a scene can develop. Working on After the Hunt was probably the biggest shift I’ve ever felt as an actor, because he had this trust.”

EJ: It’s brilliant to watch. You’re reuniting with Luca and Andrew on Artificial. The plot focuses on the AI boom, which feels very culturally apt at the moment. What was it that attracted you to the story?
WP: The big thing that attracted me was working with Luca again. I want to do so many more movies with him. On his sets, he brings back a lot of the same people, whether it be actors or the design team, so it always feels very fun to return to that. But also, it’s an amazing script. A lot of my scenes are with Ike Barinholtz, who is just hilarious and awesome. This is also my second movie working with Cooper Hoffman. Maude Apatow directed a movie called Poetic License, we worked on that together, and then we worked together on Artificial – it was really fun to get to work with him again. There’s a great group of young guys that are in that movie, and we just had a blast.

EJ: I’m excited to see it. I actually watched Poetic License recently and I really enjoyed it.
WP: Oh, you did?! I love that movie, I think it’s hilarious. It was really cool to get to be on [Maude’s] first film and to get to see her step into that role. I saw it in LA back in November, it was like a packed theatre for a friends and family type screening, and it was just so funny.

EJ: You mentioned earlier that Luca was at the top of your list of people to work with, but are there any other filmmakers that are at the forefront of your mind?
WP: Obviously, it would be awesome to work with someone like Christopher Nolan or Denis Villeneuve. To step into a world that feels very outside of this one, but also on the other end of that spectrum, I really love Kelly Reichardt’s movies. I also love Annie Baker, she’s a playwright, but she also directs. It sort of swings both ends of the spectrum. I would love to get to do a [Steven] Spielberg movie or get to work with people who are making – capital M – movies. But then also, I love that film La Chimera – there’s something so magical about it. I loved The Drama, I’d love to work with Kristoffer Borgli and I’d love to work with Paul Thomas Anderson or Joachim Trier. I’d love to do a Brady Corbet movie. Obviously, The Brutalist is incredible, but I really did like The Childhood of a Leader. I think that it’s filmmaker first, for me, for sure.

EJ: What excites you when you read a script? You mentioned earlier how important good writing is, but what hooks you in from the beginning?
WP: Weirdly, for me, something that’s really big is the lead-up to the moment where the script drops the title. I find it really exciting when you’re reading and you’re reading and you’re reading, and then it’ll be like, ‘insert title’ and you get the sense of what it would be like to watch the movie. If that really excites you and makes you want to keep reading, that’s a good sign. Overall, I just want to keep doing things that feel different. Once I’ve done something, I want to do my best to try to run in the opposite direction and not repeat myself.

grooming ADAM MARKARIAN

Interview originally published in The HERO Summer Zine 2026