Florence Pughmade headlines for recent comments she made about her intense experiences on the set ofMidsommar(2019). The modern horror classic waswritten and directed by Ari Asterand follows Pugh’s protagonist, Dani. After witnessing the tragic death of her family, Dani all but invites herself on a trip with her noncommittal boyfriend (played by Jack Reynor) and his college buddies to rural Sweden where her perceptions are slowly distorted until her life becomes a waking nightmare.
The part of Dani was never written to be an emotional walk in the park, even for the most indifferent of actresses. But Pugh internalized the emotions of her character to a degree that she would soon regret. Speaking on theOff Menupodcast, Pugh said:
I think by the end [of filming] I probably, most definitely abused my own self in order to get that performance… There were so many places that I had to go to. I’d never played someone that was in that much pain before, and I would put myself in really [expletive] situations that maybe other actors don’t need to do.
It’s not entirely clear from her recent comments whether Pugh intended to lose herself in herMidsommarcharacter from the get-go or if she fell into method acting over the course of filming. What is clear, however, is the result. Not only is Pugh’s performance inMidsommarthe best of her career so far, but Dani is among the most fully-formed and three-dimensional characters in horror cinema, a genre which is infamous for two-dimensional female character clichés.
Florence Pugh Is Anxiously Sublime in Midsommar
Even some of the best female characters from the genre have less emotional depth and psychological complexity than Pugh’s character inMidsommarlike Ripley, Sigourney Weaver’s iconic badass from theAlienfranchise, and Laurie Strode, Jamie Lee Curtis’ character in John Carpenter’sHalloween(1978).
Though Aster wrote a good part in his screenplay, Pugh deserves much of the credit in realizing the character due to her commitment to Dani’s physicality. Every move Pugh makes inMidsommarlooks like it’s causing her great pain. Her muscles are tight. She’s jumpy like a prey animal. A lesser actress would have turned the part into an “anxious millennial” caricature. But the anxiety Pugh exudes feels so authentic that it inevitably rubs off on the audience over the course of the film’s two-and-a-half-hour runtime, turning Aster’s steady pace into an excruciating slow burn.
Pugh embodies the singular feeling of anxiety inMidsommarin the same way that F. Murray Abraham embodies envy in Milos Forman’sAmadeus(1984) or how hotheaded aggression is embodied inRobert De Niro’s performance inMartin Scorsese’sRaging Bull(1980), both of whom won Oscars for their respective roles.
Did Pugh win an Oscar forMidsommarlike Abraham or DeNiro? Did she even receive a nomination for the role? No. While Pugh did receive a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscar ceremony which aired in February 2020, only a month before the Covid-19 pandemic suspended most major Hollywood productions, she was not recognized for her part inMidsommar.
Florence Pugh Was Oscar-Nominated forLittle Women
Pugh’s part inMidsommarwas overlooked by the Academy. But in that same year she did receive an Oscar nominationfor Best Supporting Actress for her role as Amy March inLittle Women(2019),Greta Gerwig’s adaptationof Louisa May Alcott’s 1869 coming-of-age novel of the same name.
Pugh’s character inLittle Women, the snotty, youngest daughter of the March sisters who falls through the ice into a frozen lake, was played most memorably by Kirsten Dunst in Gillian Armstrong’s 1994 adaptation of the same name which also starred Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, and Christian Bale in the role that Timothée Chalamet would later play in Gerwig’s adaptation.
In the end Pugh lost the Oscar to Laura Dern for her part as a predatory divorce lawyer in Noah Baumbach’sMarriage Story(2019). This was the same awards season in which Dern should have won the Primetime Emmy for her role as Renata Klein in Season 2 ofBig Little Lies(2019), if for no other reason than her unforgettable delivery of one of the funniest lines in modern television, “I willnotnot be rich!”
Florence Pugh Should’ve Been Nominated for Midsommar Instead
Pugh does a decent job with what little she has to work with in the part of Amy March. In fact, she does a better job annoying her mother and older sisters than Dunst does in the 1994 adaptation. But the fact that her performance inLittle Womengrabbed the Academy’s attention over her role inMidsommaris a classic symptom of one of the film industry’s most blatant biases: over-hyping costume dramas and period pieces while they ignore the horror genre outright. How is it possible that in the history of the industry’s most famous awards ceremony there have only been a pitifulsix horror movies nominated for Best Picture?
Related:8 Movies to Watch Before Watching Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid
It doesn’t take a critic of Roger Ebert’s caliber to realize that Pugh was nominated for the wrong movie at the 92nd Academy Awards. However, the one aspect of her performance in Gerwig’sLittle Womenthat is worthy of an Oscar nomination is how little time she had to prepare for the role.
After wrapping her part onMidsommarwith just three days left of production Pugh jumped on a plane that brought her straight from Sweden to Boston where she began filming her part inLittle Womenalmost immediately. Is it any surprise, then, that the shadow of herMidsommarcharacter loomed large over the actress? In that same podcast, Pugh said she felt guilty as her plane took off and she looked out the window at the crew finishing up production onMidsommar, adding:
I felt like I’d left [Dani] there in that field, in that state, and it was so weird. I’ve never had that before. I’ve always thought all my characters, once I left like, “They’ll be fine,” She can’t fend for herself, almost like I’d created this person, and then I just left her when I had to go do another movie.
Within a matter of days, Pugh jumped to another continent, another genre, into the hands of another up-and-coming director, and, most impressively, another character who couldn’t be further from the one she had left in that Scandinavian field. Amy March is a spoiled child surrounded by the warmth of a large and respectable Yankee family during the Civil War. Dani’s entire family is dead and she is all alone in the smartphone-addicted 21st century apart from her boyfriend who is little more than a warm body.
Peal Star Mia Goth Thinks the Oscars Should Recognize Horror Movies
There was an outpouring of fans online who claimed that Ti West’s acclaimed horror filmsXand especially its prequel,Pearl(2022), were the latest victim of Oscar snubbing. The film’s star,Mia Goth, was asked about the Academyignoring horror movies and the actress spoke her peace, saying:
I think that it’s very political and that it’s not entirely based on the quality of a project per se. I think there’s a lot going on there. A lot of cooks in the kitchen when it comes to nominations and categories that are recognized. I think change is necessary. There has to be a, you know, a shift should take place really. And if they wanted to engage with the wider public, then I think it would be of benefit, really.
While there is something to be said for horror’s status as the black sheep of cinema, Goth is right about the Academy’s ignorance of the genre and how out of step they are with public taste, especially in light of their recent nominations of action blockbusters likeTop Gun: Maverick(2022) andAvatar: The Way of Water(2022), which would have never been nominated in previous years.
Ifbreathtaking performances in horror movieslike the one Pugh gave audiences inMidsommarare ever to get the recognition they deserve from the Academy Awards, then “change is necessary."
