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The Documentary: This Cultural Life: Florence Pugh

This Cultural Life: Florence Pugh

11/01/2023 GMT

BBC World Service - The Documentary, This Cultural Life: Florence Pugh

Actor Florence Pugh talks to John Wilson about her career and formative influences.

Florence Pugh was Oscar and BAFTA nominated for her role as Amy March in the adaptation of Little Women. She has won huge acclaim for films including Midsommer, Lady Macbeth, and the Marvel adventure Black Widow. She also played the lead in the television adaptation of John Le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl. More recently she’s been on the big screen in Don’t Worry Darling, and 18th century Irish drama The Wonder.

Florence tells John Wilson how her performing ambitions during a primary school nativity show in which she played Mary with a northern accent, borrowed from her Grimsby-born grandparents. She chooses, as one of her most significant creative inspirations, a woman called Linda Mace who made costumes for all the school productions, and whose store room full of period clothes fuelled Florence’s imaginations. She recalls her breakthrough role in The Falling, about a fainting phenomenon at an English girls’ school in the late 1960s, and how she was inspired by the film’s director Carol Morley. 

Florence Pugh reflects on her musical ambitions which started as a teenage singer-songwriter posting videos on YouTube under the name Flossie Rose. She also discusses the pressures of fame, gossip columns and why she’s learned to stop searching for references to herself in social media.

(Photo: Actor Florence Pugh)

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