English actress Florence Pugh gained international fame for her acting breakthrough in the 2019 folk horror film Midsommar. The movie centers on Dania Ardor (Pugh), a young woman left traumatized after her sister kills herself and their parents by filling their home with carbon monoxide. Following this incident, Dani goes with her boyfriend, Christian Hughes (Jack Reynor) and a group of his friends to Sweden for a festival that occurs once every 90 years. They end up finding themselves among a pagan cult, and havoc is wreaked upon their group.
Midsommar was a co-production between the U.S. and Sweden, written and directed by Ari Aster. Originally, it was pitched as a slasher film in a Swedish cult setting, but Aster developed the screenplay to make it more than that. The film was critically acclaimed for Aster’s direction and Pugh’s performance; many say that Pugh was snubbed at the 2020 Oscars and deserved a nomination.
Before Pugh’s success with Midsommar—she won a Virtuoso Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and was nominated for other accolades—she was part of numerous other movies. Pugh’s screen debut came in 2014 with The Falling, a British mystery drama film. In 2015, Pugh played Eve in the short film Paradise Lost? and in 2016 she drew the attention of critics for her performance as Katherine Lester in Lady Macbeth. In 2018 alone, Pugh appeared as Elizabeth de Burgh in Outlaw King, Angela Sayers in Malevolent, and herself in the short film Leading Lady Parts. And in 2019, she starred as Saraya “Paige” Knight in the biographical sports comedy-drama film Fighting with my Family, which drew critics’ eyes, and played Lucille in the short film In The Time it Takes to Get There.
What Florence Pugh Did Before Midsommar (& What She’s Done Since)
Pugh also had experience working on television shows before she gained international recognition for Midsommar. In 2015, she was in the unaired TV pilot of Studio City and in 2016 she played Cara Thomas in a three-episode arc of Marcella. Later, in 2018, she played Cordelia in the TV movie King Lear and Chairman “Charlie” Ross in the miniseries The Little Drummer Girl.
Following Midsommar, Pugh gained further fame for her performance as Amy March in director Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. In fact, Pugh was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the movie; the movie was nominated for other accolades, too. This year, Pugh appeared in an episode of Acting for a Cause. Pugh will also appear opposite Scarlett Johansson as Yelena Belova in Black Widow, a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie that is slated to come out in November 2020, following delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
