Florence Pugh Rewatches Midsommar, Dune and More

Florence Pugh has reached the slightly surreal stage of her career where looking back means revisiting an impressive collection of emotional breakdowns, knife fights and trips to Arrakis.

Sitting down with Vanity Fair, Pugh rewatches scenes from Little Women, Black Widow, Midsommar, Dune: Part Two and more, revealing how dramatically different each production felt. Little Women arrived early enough in her career that working opposite Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep and Greta Gerwig still left her obsessing over every line before filming.

Joining Marvel was an entirely different education. Pugh spent months preparing for Yelena Belova’s fight scenes and remembers Scarlett Johansson helping her understand that enormous action sequences were supposed to be fun, not simply something to survive. Pugh also reveals that experimenting with a Russian accent helped unlock Yelena’s dry, eccentric personality.

Midsommar remains particularly personal. Pugh describes Dani as one of the performances she is proudest of, recalling emotionally exhausting takes and unusual character work that included attending an improvised therapy session with Jack Reynor while director Ari Aster played their therapist.

And then there was Dune: Part Two. Pugh filmed Princess Irulan in intense Italian heat while so ill that Charlotte Rampling encouraged her to go home.

Her response was basically: absolutely not. She was on the Dune set.