The role that infuriated Florence Pugh: “I actually couldn’t be loud about it”
Every actor who cares to talk about their careers (so most of them) has stories about films they regret or just had a bad time with. Even if they think they were good movies, the experience of the role–be it the director, the creepy producer, or the co-stars—was unpleasant for them. Florence Pugh is no exception.
Your first thought would probably be 2019’s Midsommar, a folk horror film about a woman’s experience of grief and trauma manifesting through disturbing visual metaphor in an eerie Scandinavian village. And while she said that she didn’t want to play this kind of role again, it wasn’t the one that reportedly ‘infuriated’ her. It wasn’t even being in a Marvel movie, 2021’s Black Widow.
It was 2022’s The Wonder that actually pushed Pugh past her limits. The film is based on the eponymous 2016 novel by Emma Donoghue. In an interview with Radio Times, Pugh lamented her experiences playing the part of Elizabeth, a nurse who served in the Crimean War and follows her vocation to Ireland after the great famine.
Pugh said, “And for this, I read the script, and I was like, ‘Yes, pushing back!’ And then actually I came to play to it, and I was like, ‘No, she can’t push back because we’re dealing with a completely different time, with a religion that was so impressive and powerful that no matter how much she knew and how much she was aware of what was going on – she believed in science over religion – she can’t say that.'”
Adding, “And so for the first time ever in any role that I’ve done, I actually couldn’t be loud about it. I had to be quiet about it, and that was what made it really, really exciting and fascinating to do. Her pushback was infuriating, but it couldn’t be done in a loud, aggressive way that we can do now, and that was exciting for me to do.”
The Wonder follows spiritual and political struggles that Pugh’s character, Elizabeth or Leb, endures in unenviable circumstances. The story follows her attending to an etiolated girl who’s been on an ‘impossible’ fast for 4 months and is withering away. Intrigue and trauma ensue, and while the film has moments of pathos and redemption, it’s a tough watch. The kind of movie you wouldn’t show your kids–not because it’s inappropriately sexual or violent–because it’s just heartbreaking. Pugh’s performance was met with glowing reviews from everyone who could sit through it, however.
Maybe this is the reason that Pugh has committed to Marvel movies, which for most actors means that it’s the only thing they’re going to do for a decade. Many people have a fragile emotional bandwidth in their personal life. Portraying that continuously, role after role must be taxing. We can only hope that Florence Pugh has a better time on the set of the upcoming not-quite-the-Avengers-but-close-enough Thunderbolts movie.
