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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Thursday 4 July 2019

Florence Pugh goes down a dark rabbit hole in ‘Midsommar’

By JAKE COYLE “I remember imagining
Associated Press what she would have had
NEW YORK (AP) — How to do. I thought: ‘Yeah, I
does one willingly, even really want to be a part
eagerly, walk into a sunlit of this,’” recalls Pugh. “It’s
nightmare like Ari Aster’s not like I go: ‘I really want
“Midsommar”? For Flor- to play a lady who goes in-
ence Pugh, the motivation sane in a field.’”
came while watching the In “Midsommar,” Pugh
camera zoom between stars as Dani Ardor, a grief-
Toni Collette’s legs in a par- stricken college student
ticularly balletic moment who shortly after her family
during the feverish climax is killed is a grisly manner,
of Aster’s debut, “Heredi- joins her long-term boy-
tary.” friend (Jack Reynor) and his

This image released by A24 shows Jack Reynor and Florence Pugh, left, in a scene from the horror
film “Midsommar.”
Associated Press
friends on a summer trip to breakthrough, William Old- combined with the vibran-
the pastoral Swedish com- royd’s “Lady Macbeth,” cy of her performances,
pound of Harga. She goes she played a fiery young has frequently led to com-
full of existential dread and Victorian woman who, parisons to Kate Winslet.
relationship anxiety; their having been married into “Florence is kind of super-
inevitable break-up has a pitiless and drab English naturally confident,” says
been merely postponed household, madly seizes Aster. “She’s really not like
by Dani’s tragedy. The in- her own freedom. In Ste- Dani at all. Those meeker
creasingly dark and hallu- phen Merchant’s “Fighting qualities are nowhere to be
cinogenic pagan rituals of With my Family,” released found in Florence’s person-
a seemingly idyllic ancient earlier this year, she played ality.”
Swedish cult, it turns out, a working-class English girl It was “Lady Macbeth”
are less than ideal couples who conquers long odds that put Pugh on Aster’s
therapy. and self-doubt to become radar. They initially Skyped
The movie, which A24 a WWE professional wres- together to discuss the
will release in theaters tler. “There’s always some- film, but things only came
Wednesday, wasn’t a nat- thing appealing about a together after the direc-
ural choice for Pugh, the change and about some- tor had gone through hun-
23-year-old British actress. one brewing into their own dreds of auditions.
She doesn’t like horror mov- body and into their own “I just had a very strong
ies. But she was drawn by self,” says Pugh. feeling about her after
the precision of Aster’s cho- It would be convenient to seeing ‘Lady Macbeth.’ In
reography, the brokenness say that Pugh, too, is brew- ‘Lady Macbeth, she plays
of his characters and the ing into herself. And that’s this impenetrable, poised,
appeal of jumping down a true to a certain extent. calculating sociopathic
twisted rabbit hole. Days after Pugh spoke, she woman. But I could see her
“There was something was to begin production doing this which is almost
about her insanity at the on Marvel’s Black Widow the polar opposite,” Aster
end that I knew I would standalone film, co-starring says. “And also there is a
enjoy, and I knew I need- alongside Scarlett Johans- trajectory in the film. I was
ed to do,” Pugh said in a son. Later this year, she’ll excited to see her realize
recent interview. “I had co-star in Greta Gerwig’s that arc.”
never played anyone like “Little Women,” one of The part was close to Aster;
that before and that was the year’s most anticipat- the 32-year-old New York
so exciting. She doesn’t get ed films. Her fame is set to filmmaker based Dani on
better. She gets more con- grow exponentially. himself. Just as the terrors of
fused but in that confusion, But Pugh also seems al- “Hereditary” emerged from
she is released. And that is ready fully formed. She family dynamics, the folk-
fascinating.” grew up in a large, creative horror of “Midsommar” is
In her short and rapidly ex- family in Oxford. Her moth- predicated on a break-up.
panding career, Pugh has er teaches dance and two Aster wrote it in the after-
shown a knack for trans- of her siblings also act, in- math of a college split that,
formation. She has played cluding Toby Sebastian like “Midsommar,” mingled
characters who, with or who appeared in “Game emotional pain with psy-
without sanity intact, come of Thrones.” She has a poise chedelics. Aster conceives
into their own. In her 2017 and directness to her that, of the film as a bad trip.q