'If people don’t want me to be this way they’re going to be severely disappointed'
Florence Pugh is not afraid to speak her mind – and thank goodness for that. Too often women are expected to look and behave in a certain way and quietly accept unrelenting criticism whatever they do, just because. ‘There are fine lines women have to stay within,’ the actress told The Times, ‘otherwise they are called a diva, demanding, problematic. And I don’t want to fit into stereotypes made by others. It is really exhausting for a young woman to just be in this industry, and actually other industries. But I’ve always been encouraged to have a voice.’ Pugh has been acting for ten years now, making her debut in The Falling in 2014. She has already been nominated for an Oscar and two BAFTAs and has critically acclaimed films such as Oppenheimer, Dune: Part Two, Midsommar, Don’t Worry Darling, Little Women, Lady Macbeth and, of course, Puss in Boots under her belt. All of which is to say that she has earned her stripes as an A-list actor. Sadly, that also means she is well-versed in scrutiny, unattainable beauty standards and the invasion of her privacy.
Despite her best efforts, the We Live in Time star has not escaped the inevitable torment that comes with fame. Starting out in Hollywood in her late teens, she has spoken candidly about the pressure she felt to lose weight and even to reshape her face and eyebrows. When a critic called her thighs ‘chunky’ in a review of Fighting with My Family, she took them to task online. When online trolls criticised her figure when she wore a see-through Valentino dress in 2022 she responded on Instagram to say, ‘So many of you wanted to aggressively let me know how disappointed you were by my “tiny tits”… Grow up. Respect bodies. Respect all women.’ In her recent interview with The Times, Pugh recalls learning from the injustice of stars that came before her. ‘I remember godawful headlines about how Keira Knightley isn’t thin anymore or watching women getting torn apart despite being talented and beautiful,’ she said. ‘The only thing people want to talk about is some useless crap about how they look. And so I didn’t care to abide by those rules. I’ve loved challenging ideas I don’t like.’ Which is exactly what she did when the trolls came for her personal life, too. When Pugh dated Scrubs star Zach Braff, who is 21 years her senior, between 2019 and 2022, they faced endless trolling on social media because of their age gap. Never more so than when she posted a picture of her boyfriend on Instagram to celebrate his 45th birthday, but in true Pugh style, she was quick to call the comments ‘bullying’ and said she ‘will not allow that behaviour’. ‘Most intelligent people would just be quiet and go live their life, but I am a bit too gobby and argumentative. A bit too yappy,' she joked. 'I wouldn’t be able to not say how I feel, especially when it’s me being attacked. If people don’t want me to be this way they’re going to be severely disappointed.’ Without emboldened voices like hers – ones, it's worth noting, that people actually listen to – these damaging comments would continue to go unchecked. Pugh is one of many, but still not enough, bold female voices willing to call out blatant misogyny and bullying as and when she sees it.
She says she wants to challenge how women are perceived and how they are 'supposed to look', while demanding the space for them to change if they want to. For someone as famous and successful as Pugh, never mind everyone else, if she absorbed every negative comment about her appearance, her personality or her skills, then she simply would not be able to move through the day. This is something all women can relate to on some level. ‘I’m proud I’ve stuck by myself and the way I look – I’m really interested in people who are still angry with me for not losing weight, or who just hate my nose ring. I am not going to be able to just change the way that things are,’ the actress admitted, ‘but I can certainly help young women coming into this industry by making conversations happen where they weren’t before.’ Her latest film We Live In Time comes out on New Year’s Day and sees Pugh play a young mother and chef with terminal cancer. (If you plan to watch it with a hangover, you have been warned.) Ever one to engage with her material on a deeper level, Pugh said working on the film has changed her perspective – and in turn her life. ‘I realised, Ok, I need to wake the fuck up. I had to look away from my career […] and go, oh, I need to do a bit of my life.’ She's right – there is so much more to life, and to being a woman, than the way we look, 'act' and are perceived. The unrealistic expectations, endless criticism and resulting self doubt is a distraction from what really matters. If that's Pugh's lesson, she is a definite role model in our books. Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across pop culture, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things TV for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow shows with equal respect).
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