There are periods of time in Hollywood in which it really feels as if an actor is “having a moment.” Over the past year that’s been true for Florence Pugh, a versatile actress who has appeared in the wrestling movie championed by Dwayne Johnson Fighting with my Family, the period book lovers drama Little Women and the horror flick Midsommar over the past year and will next throw on some badass attire for Black Widow. You’d be forgiven if you didn’t recognize the actress in all of these roles.
In fact, Florence Pugh recently revealed being a part of all different types of movies and playing different types of characters is kind of the goal. She actually hopes fans aren’t always recognizing her in movies, noting,
I’ve had conversations about films with people who had no idea that I was in them. I love that. To me, that’s acting. It’s like, 'OK it worked.'
A recent New York Times profile mentioned Florence Pugh’s penchant for tackling different kinds of characters and, in short, it seems like she really enjoys taking on harder challenges as well as different kinds of roles.
Really, a lot of Florence Pugh’s recent characters have very little in common. In Midsommar, she plays a college student who ends up involved with a weird Swedish commune and who is dealing with grief. In Little Women she’s a young woman, an artist, who is strong given women's circumstances during the period and is a bit different from her literary counterpart. In Fighting with my Family she plays Paige, who comes from a blue collar wrestling family and struggles to fit in before learning to be herself. (She rocks darker hair and a lip ring in that one, to boot.)
Next, in Black Widow she’s expected to play a fighter and a spy from Russia who in the comics trained in a program called Red Room and knows Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow. It should be a different direction for the actress, and Florence Pugh previously touched on why she really wanted to do a Marvel movie.
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All of these roles have different costumes, many of these roles have different accents and are also set in different time periods.
Look, at the end of the day, some actors like to stay in one lane and do similar types of roles based on a personality that works for them. There’s a lot of money that can be made that way. However, other actors prefer to be chameleons and tackle a broad spectrum of roles. There’s no wrong or right way to take on Hollywood, but if this is the direction Florence Pugh wants to take her career, it seems as if it is working out for the actress so far.
We’ll keep you posted on the status of Black Widow, which is coming in May of this year. For now, you can see Florence Pugh in action in Little Women or take a look at what else is coming with our full schedule.
