- 8 minutes ago
Florence Pugh takes a look back at some of her most memorable roles throughout her career. From Dune: Part Two and Midsommar to Little Women, Black Widow and more, Florence revisits key scenes from her career and shares behind-the-scenes stories about bringing each character to life. Watch as she breaks down the performances, moments, and memories that have shaped her career.
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00:00Let's watch me absolutely cry my eyes out.
00:05Hi, I'm Florence Pugh, and I'm gonna be watching
00:08a few of my scenes from my career.
00:24Well, Rome took all the vanity out of me,
00:27and Paris made me realize I'd never be a genius,
00:29so I'm giving up all my foolish artistic hopes.
00:31Why did you give up?
00:32I mean, you have so much talent and energy.
00:34Talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so.
00:38I want to be great or nothing.
00:40This scene was interesting because I,
00:42this was, I think, like my second day shooting,
00:44and I'd only met Timmy maybe once before or twice before,
00:49but it really was fresh first few days of the shoot.
00:54These days were so epic because it really did feel like
00:58I'd been given this opportunity, and this was my moment to show up for myself.
01:02And so every day that I would get, you know, called in,
01:06I would be obsessing over lines and making sure that I was making the right choices
01:10because I was working with Greta, and I was working with Timmy,
01:13and I was working with Meryl.
01:14Like, there were just so many elements of the first week that were absolutely bonkers.
01:19So when that started playing, I instantly started getting nervous
01:21because I think, obviously, this day was very close to the beginning of my shoot.
01:26And as a woman, there's no way for me to make my own money.
01:30Not enough to earn a living or to support my family.
01:35And if I had my own money, which I don't,
01:37that money would belong to my husband the moment we got married.
01:40And if we had children, they would be his, not mine.
01:43They would be his property.
01:45So don't sit there and tell me that marriage isn't an economic proposition
01:48because it is.
01:50I think every movie is different in terms of the dynamics
01:53and the politics of how things move.
01:57And every time you join a new film,
02:00your understanding of film sets is also changing, you're learning more.
02:04This one in particular was so thrilling.
02:07I felt like my brain was really getting stretched
02:09because the way that Greta worked was very similar to doing plays.
02:14We would come in every morning and we would rehearse these scenes
02:17and get it to the pace that she had imagined when she was writing it.
02:20And if, you know, there were lines that were written over the top of one another,
02:23she really meant for you to say it over the top of that word that she brought it in.
02:27So it kind of was a bit like we were all rehearsing music.
02:30So she'd come in with her coffee and we'd all be in a circle
02:32and we would get it to the pace where she was like clicking the beats
02:36and you had to show up with your A-game every single day.
02:38You had to make sure that your brain was switched on
02:41and you had your coffee in hand and you were ready to ace it every take.
02:45And that was the type of standard that I try and hold myself to.
03:01Is that what we are?
03:12Put it down before I make you.
03:14I'm a baby.
03:16Watch your step.
03:32So this was the first scene that I ever shot with Black Widow
03:35and it was a week-long scene of shooting this fight sequence.
03:39When you join these movies, you have no idea how much you're supposed to be doing
03:42and how much you're kind of sitting out and letting stunties do.
03:46So I think everybody's first movie is they really just like throw themselves at everything.
03:50They're like, I can do the roll, I can do the this.
03:51And you become so prepared for these epic scenes.
03:55And so I'd been in with the stunties for about three months before this
03:59and I've been doing mad with my stuntie Mac, Michaela, who was also doing some of the rig work.
04:07It was a scene that we'd all discussed and spoken about and worked on for months beforehand
04:12and then we actually came to shoot it and we had a week to do it
04:14which is a luxury when you think about realistically how long the scene is.
04:19There were like a few takes because she breaks the plate on my face in a bit
04:23and there were a few takes where the plate would break and everyone would be like,
04:26Oh, it's not the real plate! But it was like the smashable plate.
04:28All my head is actually in a sink and so like my ponytails would get stuck in like loads of
04:34like noodles, soup, water
04:35and then I'd come out and I'd have bits in my hair.
04:37So it's like you can't really stop the momentum when you get into these stunt scenes
04:42and they're very thrilling when you're in them, especially when you get to do them with someone like Scarlet
04:47who's been doing it for 10 years.
05:10I was entering this mega opportunity, this mega set with this
05:18movie star that I have been watching maybe my whole life nearly.
05:22I remember feeling like I needed to keep my ears and eyes open all the time
05:26because there was just so much for me to absorb and there was so much that I didn't know
05:30and I'd never been in something like this before and I was the baby.
05:35So it really did feel like I needed to work hard and be aware and pay attention.
05:40It's a different style of making movies in Marvel movies, you know, they're huge.
05:45So it can be sometimes quite intimidating because there's so much for you to learn
05:49and obviously Scarlet was just a dream to work with.
05:51I think her overall comment about it was that like you're supposed to have fun
05:56because I was stressing there's a role in this that actually made it in the trailer but got cut in
06:01this scene
06:01and I essentially have to like dive into the air and throw my arm that way because there's a blade
06:06in this hand
06:07and as I'm mid-dive, a bit like a swallow dive, I then, at the last moment when I'm about
06:12to hit the floor, I do a roll.
06:14It's the most bonkers thing to ask your brain to be okay with because you literally like leap into the
06:18air
06:19and immediately your arms are like, but you have to like get rid of that fear.
06:24I remember she was just like, hey, first of all, if it doesn't feel right, this is what stunt doubles
06:29are for.
06:29They're trained professionals who know how to do this and second of all, this is all supposed to be fun.
06:34Like you can really, really enjoy this world and enjoy what they ask you to do
06:38and I think that was just such a relief to hear that to be a part of the experience
06:44as opposed to only be working towards the experience and she was a great mentor, still is.
06:49I still send her videos of questions where I'm like, should I do this? Am I allowed to do this?
06:55What should I say in this situation? Then she'll send a video.
06:58It's great to have a woman like that that you can chat to about the highs and the lows in
07:04this industry.
07:05I'm not here trying to be your friend, but you need to tell me what that is.
07:08It's a synthetic gas, the counter-agent to chemical subjugation.
07:12The gas immunizes the brain's neural pathways from external manipulation.
07:15Maybe in English next time?
07:19When you start out with these movies, it's obviously the idea is that you want to go forward with that
07:25storyline.
07:26And I think we all didn't really know what Yelena was.
07:30She was obviously written on the page in a specific way and she needed color.
07:34And, you know, when we were in the rehearsal period, I was reading her aloud in an English accent
07:39because I think that's what it was supposed to be.
07:40She sounded so boring. I was like, oh, this girl, she's going to be miserable.
07:46And then I remember I was at home once and I was like, I was cooking my dinner
07:49and I just decided to start doing some of the lines in a Russian accent.
07:52And she suddenly became funny and dry and witty and sarcastic.
07:57And I was like, oh, my God, she's Russian.
07:59And so I went in the next day and I asked Kat and I said, how would you feel if
08:04we changed her a little bit?
08:06And we did a few videos on her phone to send to Kevin and everybody was happy with that change.
08:11So from that moment, I was able to actually create who Yelena is now,
08:16like the oddities, the weirdness, the weird timing.
08:19I was able to, you know, riff a bit more.
08:21I had more freedom in creating lines, moments.
08:24And it's just so fascinating when you're building a character and you're given the space to.
08:29I was given the space to by Kevin and by Marvel to make her something special.
08:34And I'm so grateful that they allowed me to do that because she's totally bonkers.
08:45You're a physicist, you pick and choose rules.
08:48Or do you use the discipline to channel your energies into progress?
08:53I like a little wiggle room.
08:55Do you always tell the party line?
08:59I like my wiggle room, too.
09:01Okay, I know what's going to happen next.
09:02They're going to have sex.
09:05They're going to have rampant sex and I don't need to see that.
09:07That first day, totally bricking it, working with just two fine legends.
09:15Well, loads of legends, obviously.
09:17But this day was like, oh my gosh, I have to show up.
09:21They'd again already been shooting.
09:23I had to just slot in and be totally cool that I was on a Christopher Nolan set,
09:26which is, I mean, that's the acting.
09:29Pretend like this is normal.
09:30The way that I interpret how Chris works is he expects you to be the thing that he hired,
09:36which is, I know you're you.
09:38I know you can do this.
09:40And I think you'd be brilliant in these areas.
09:42And now you just need, you need to do the thing.
09:45And obviously that's not explained to you.
09:47But the way that these sets feel is everybody is on their own.
09:50No one's there to give you a cue.
09:52No one's there to tell you when.
09:53No one's there to advise you.
09:55You are there as a part of the cast and crew.
09:58And you are there to watch how the day evolves, how the scene evolves.
10:02It was up to me to make my way through a party in the back of another shot
10:05with a tray of cocktails to get to that point next to Killian in like essentially their wanna.
10:11So usual things like that, there's a fair bit of babying, I guess.
10:16And what I loved about his sets is it required for everybody to be on it.
10:19You're trusted to do the thing that you've been hired to do,
10:22which is a huge privilege.
10:25It's also totally terrifying because you just, you just don't wanna make a mistake.
10:29And I think especially with someone like Chris,
10:31he's such a genius that you only want to impress him and he's seen it all.
10:35So it's very hard to impress him, but it's that kind of fire.
10:39Everybody on set, all the crew members, everybody wants to do right by him.
10:43Everybody wants him to be proud.
10:44And it's because of that energy that excellent work is given over daily.
10:50Essentially like everyone's the teacher's pet and it works.
10:55And it's such a, you know, you're not allowed to sit down on his set.
10:59So you're on set for about 10 hours.
11:02I'm in my heels and you can't sit down.
11:05You're there to be in the space with him and all of the actors.
11:09And it makes the whole experience so alive.
11:12It's like why we do this.
11:14We don't do this to sit in our trailers.
11:15We don't do this to sit in our cast chair.
11:17We do this because we get to watch and we get to learn.
11:20In fact, the scene after this was my sex scene.
11:23And halfway through the sex scene, one of the cameras broke.
11:25The other one was in the repair shop already.
11:28And so while we waited for the camera surgeon to come in the room,
11:32I was obviously wearing my nipple patches and like my dressing gown.
11:37And Chris was explaining to me how the camera needed to be fixed.
11:39He like took parts of the camera away and was saying that, you know,
11:43this part of the shutter is broken and it's letting in too much light.
11:46And in some cases you want to have that effect.
11:49But in this case we don't.
11:50And his brain was just so exciting to just listen to.
11:56And in the middle of the scene where we're both half naked,
11:58a camera surgeon comes in with his drills, fixes it.
12:01Chris is explaining how he's fixing it.
12:03We were probably down for about 45 minutes.
12:05It was the best 45 minutes of just learning.
12:09And that is that energy on his sets.
12:12I didn't expect to see you today.
12:15Do I have to make an appointment?
12:21Alvarez?
12:26Most of the time when you're playing someone that is real,
12:29the script is in some way going to go away from the story
12:33to make a movie or the script has imaginary scenes,
12:37you know, that no one knows if that ever happens.
12:40I obviously want to understand them.
12:41I want to understand their headspace.
12:43For example, she is someone that suffered with mental health her whole life,
12:47which is sadly why it ended or as what it alludes to.
12:52And it's also kind of nodded that she potentially and probably was a lesbian,
12:57which is where the relationship kind of falls short.
13:00So obviously it's really important understanding all of those hardships
13:03in a body of a woman where she wasn't allowed to be that during that time.
13:08So that's helpful.
13:08But most of the time I also let the script feed me.
13:28Let's watch me absolutely cry my eyes out.
13:36I'm actually just going over the beats in my head actually.
13:38I know this portion off by heart.
13:41Most things that we've watched today,
13:44I understand the blueprint of where the scene is going to go.
13:49But this, I remember the night before, I saw it in my head.
13:54I saw the performance that I needed to give, that I was going to give.
13:59But I also knew that there had to be solid markers,
14:04almost like clinging points that I could cling to
14:06so that I could gear up and understand where I was going to go next.
14:11I think most of the time when you're doing emotion,
14:14personally for me,
14:15I feel like I have to fling emotion out
14:20because you can't choreograph it and you can't shape it.
14:24With this, because the breakdown of the scene was so long.
14:28I needed levels where I could just like figure out where I was emotionally
14:32and know where I was going next.
14:34So I had broken down this whole scene in my head.
14:37So watching it now, I'm like, I know what's to come.
14:42I know what I've achieved, where I need to go
14:44because it is a hugely emotional
14:47and I just had to have so much energy each take.
14:50Some of the takes lasted like 10 minutes long,
14:5210 minutes long of me creating an arc out of emotion
14:56that I had to find every single time.
14:57ending in me screaming with, you know,
15:02six of the most talented actresses around me.
15:23It's tolling doing that to yourself every time.
15:26This is obviously my job and I do it for a living and I love doing it.
15:30And also there's something so satisfying about watching something
15:33and going, yes, we got it.
15:35We did it.
15:35I got every beat, everything that we discussed for weeks,
15:38everything that we listed as important things to see on my face.
15:42We've done it.
15:43So I feel satisfied.
15:45I'm probably the most proud of this performance in Danny
15:50because of how hard it was.
15:53And I think the reason why it was so hard is because I couldn't hide.
15:56Like, I knew what I needed to do.
15:58I needed my body and my face to look destroyed.
16:01I needed to look like grief was wearing me,
16:04not as a cloak, but as like a heavy, heavy crown.
16:08I might have to find my footing first if that's okay.
16:12Uh, yeah.
16:12Yeah?
16:12Of course.
16:13Okay.
16:14And listen, if you're feeling that easy,
16:16you don't have to take them at all.
16:17No, no, no, no.
16:18I just, I want to feel settled first.
16:20Okay.
16:21Okay.
16:23I'll wait.
16:23No, no, you go ahead, please.
16:25No, I'll wait.
16:26Let's come up together.
16:27We would do these days where we would basically,
16:29to figure out our characters and to kind of like get to know them a bit better,
16:33we would do these improv days as our characters.
16:38So we would go out into Budapest and do an activity all together.
16:40And he would basically watch us for, you know, a few hours.
16:44And Jack, Rayner, and I, we did a therapy session together in our characters.
16:49And Ari was our therapist.
16:51He loved that.
16:52I think just reaching further away outside of the script,
16:56out of the frames of the script was really important for Ari to see in us.
17:00It's taken me years to understand that it's okay to cry.
17:02And it's okay for people to see you.
17:05Um, so, you know, doing something like this,
17:08I remember thinking, oh, I mean, I've done it before on camera,
17:12but not to this extent.
17:13I don't think I'll ever do it to this extent ever again.
17:21The prophet, the one who points the way.
17:25These are our own religious patterns, aren't they?
17:28This is our doing.
17:33Muad'Dib means kangaroo mouse.
17:35An unusual war name for a Fremen.
17:40What if Parla Treatise were still alive?
17:42Enough!
17:43This must not come out.
17:44I could not believe that I got a role in, in this movie.
17:49Like I, I could not believe it.
17:52It was absolutely mind blowing to me that I was being welcomed to the cast.
17:58And this was my second day shooting.
18:02And I got to work with Charlotte Rampling immediately.
18:05And you have to just pretend as if like, that's, you know, normal and it's your day job.
18:10But yeah, we were shooting in Italy.
18:12I was there for, I think, a week.
18:15And we only shot for two days in this location.
18:18It was so beautiful.
18:21It was so hot.
18:25Like insanely hot.
18:27Charlotte's wearing, obviously, that big McGoverns.
18:29And I was really, really ill.
18:31So interestingly, I was watching this earlier and I couldn't understand why my voice was so high.
18:38And, and my voice was so high was because I was really, I was really ill and I was trying
18:42to like, keep in a cough.
18:43Charlotte kept on being like, just tell Denis, you feel awful and you should go home.
18:48And I was like, I can't go home.
18:50I'm on the Dune set.
18:51No way.
18:53I am mustering through this.
18:55Repression only makes a religion flourish.
18:58You'll only end up humiliating yourself.
19:00You underestimate my sadocard.
19:03You underestimate the power of faith.
19:05The way that I saw it was that I was playing someone that was going to evolve.
19:09That was going to become something slightly more complicated as she got older in the next movie.
19:15She was a princess and you could, I could feel that the story was going to go elsewhere.
19:21And I was given these moments in this movie to kind of really anchor that intrigue.
19:26And I think that's what I, that's what I wanted to zone in on was how do I make her
19:31and also try and find the ways that I can with the limited time that I had with Christopher.
19:39To try and in some way allow for our relationship and for me to be his daughter to trickle down
19:46somewhere in my performance.
19:47So I think I was just like clocking.
19:49I was doing a lot of clocking and we have the same hair.
19:52Did you know that?
20:00Well, I brought you supper.
20:06Well, I think if I'm hungry, I can feed myself.
20:15Just trying to help.
20:16Oh, I don't need your help.
20:21I'm totally fascinated by people that I'm told I should dislike.
20:26Like the characters that I read.
20:28I think especially with all of the women that I've played, especially the unlikable ones or the ones that people
20:33thought that they didn't like beforehand.
20:35I want to give an opportunity of allowing another version of allowing for maybe them to have been misrepresented before.
20:42Or maybe there was a side to them that you hadn't quite considered.
20:46And for me, I find that very exciting with Kathy Ames, Kate Albee.
20:51She was written by a man, a man who understood her, but a man who also didn't like her.
20:56And then a man who likened herself to himself.
21:01That is just so fascinating.
21:03And I think what Zoe has done is maybe allowed opportunity for her to have reason for the ways that
21:10she reacted, treated, lived her life.
21:15She kind of pulled it apart a little bit and made it her story.
21:20A few days after you showed up here, a man down the road, he found a suitcase, some money in
21:28it, and jewelry.
21:34Wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?
21:40Of course not.
21:46Okay, fascinatingly, that whole landscape that you see was made.
21:49That isn't a farm.
21:51That was created.
21:53Amazing.
21:55It was created.
21:55It looks like an actual farm.
21:57It looks like an actual house.
21:58That was just a field.
22:00They've made that.
22:01So it's beautiful.
22:02We had the most incredible time shooting in New Zealand.
22:05We shot a lot on stage and a lot on location.
22:08I loved shooting there.
22:10I loved living there.
22:11I think there's something very special about the ground and the earth and the respect that they have for that
22:15earth over there.
22:17So I think whenever you have the opportunity to work outside, we felt alive.
22:23It honestly felt like magic.
22:24And obviously working with Mike Feist, I wish I had more time with him.
22:28I wish I had more time to play.
22:30And he's just such a beautiful man, such a beautiful soul.
22:36And his ability to bring to life characters that weren't around before him.
22:42I mean, I believe that his version of his character could and should be alive in that era.
22:49Like, he makes them so real.
22:51And that is just a pleasure to act opposite.
22:54My way of thinking is that I want to be able to argue in defense of all of my characters
23:01by the end of my journey with them.
23:04Or at least the bits that I can.
23:06And I think what we were able to do on this show is try and unpick what this life for
23:14this woman in that era would have been like.
23:16That's not to say she doesn't do awful shit.
23:17Like, of course she does.
23:18I'm not, like, defending her actions there.
23:22But it's always interesting trying to make a villain likeable.
23:29Because other than, you know, a trillionaire and a few billionaires, like, no one's a full, full villain.
23:42I work hard, but, like, I watch these clips and I want to do better.
23:47I want to be, I want to be growing with my career and I want to be making sure that
23:53I'm constantly changing and improving.
23:56I recognize the performer that I am, but I'm excited about not recognizing the next decade of my career.