The one actor who gobsmacked Greta Gerwig: “Unafraid of anything”
Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women is completely glorious, with a magical and radiant heart that exudes warmth and compassion in every frame. It’s one of those rare adaptations that turned out beautifully, with a staggering team of creatives that elevated every aspect of the source material when transforming it on screen, with a modern focus on the traditional story as Gerwig explores money, agency and the death of childhood itself. When taking on a story that is so widely beloved, the task of casting each role seems daunting and loaded, with many opinions on the right person to play each of the four sisters. But for Gerwig, there was one actor who remained crystal clear in her mind for one character in particular.
After her breakout role in the BIFA-nominated Lady Macbeth, directed by William Oldroyd in 2016, Florence Pugh quickly rose to fame and experienced a sudden escalation to global stardom in 2019, with leading roles in Midsommar, Fighting with My Family and Little Women. When it was announced that Pugh would play Amy, the sometimes unlikeable, feisty and abrasive younger sister in the March family, audiences and fans of the book waited with bated breath to see how the actor would portray this Marmite character.
But Gerwig never had any doubts that Pugh was the perfect Amy. After being blown away by her performance in Lady Macbeth, she was immediately convinced that she needed to star in the adaptation of Louisa Alcott’s novel.
When asked about her initial impression of Pugh, Gerwig said, “I thought she was gobsmackingly good and was amazed by how young and confident she was. She seemed unafraid of anything. I had this hunch she was my Amy, but I didn’t know for sure. There were all these images of her online, at different events, and she had a way of standing and confronting the camera, of total self-assurance, that I thought, ‘That’s my Amy.’”
Pugh has been praised as one of the actors of her generation, with a spellbinding performance in Little Women that captures the multi-faceted layers of Amy March, someone who is both annoying and attention-seeking while also being deeply loveable, desperate to be seen in the same way as her sisters and included in the fun.
She is daring in the scenes that show her to be spiteful and unkind, with the infamous book-burning interaction between Amy and Jo showing Pugh’s ability to capture the intensity of her flaws without shying away from them, but in later scenes when Amy is an adult, we see a whole other side to her as she commiserates about her inability to find power and the people that don’t take her seriously revealing a soft and introspective side to the once spiky sister.
The cast of Little Women bring a depth and tenderness to the story that is joyful and devastating all at once, with Gerwig carefully orchestrating a family dynamic between the sisters that feels lived-in and authentic, with over-lapping dialogue and constant moments of physical touch and playfulness that encapsulate the chaos of sibling relationships. Gerwig has collaborated with many of the cast members on later projects, so perhaps we’ll see another story from the director where she reclaims her relationships with each of the little women.
