Actress Florence Pugh recently opened up about how when she first entered the entertainment industry, she wasn’t always accepted exactly as herself. The 26-year-old has been promoting her newest film The Wonder after filming her role in the upcoming Dune 2 and attending the press tour for Don’t Worry Darling with Harry Styles. Clearly, whatever she’s doing now is bringing her some success.
In an interview for her press tour with The Telegraph, Pugh described how a performer’s image comes under intense scrutiny when they’re brought on for a film or a TV show pilot. It involved a lot of body-shaming and outside opinions.
“All the things that they were trying to change about me – whether it was my weight, my look, the shape of my face, the shape of my eyebrows – that was so not what I wanted to do, or the industry I wanted to work in,” she said. “I’d thought the film business would be like [my experience of making] The Falling, but actually, this was what the top of the game looked like, and I felt I’d made a massive mistake.”
The Falling was a 2014 film starring Pugh and Game of Thrones‘ Maisie Williams about two school girls in the 1960s and it opened to warm reviews. While she had a great experience on set during that movie, other roles left her feeling like she might not fit in the entertainment world. She said she had to find her passion for the work again and get comfortable with herself.
“I think it’s far too easy for people in this industry to push you left and right. And I was lucky enough to discover when I was 19 what kind of a performer I wanted to be,” she explained.
Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.
