Next Generation Leaders – U.K. – Florence Pugh – Saving the Movie Star From Extinction

Trendsetters and trailblazers guiding who are the way to a brighter future

- By Eliana Dockterman. Photographs by Mark Peckmezian

When Florence Pugh was a child, she hated to cry in public. If she had an argument with her parents, she would run to the bathroom, lock the door, and sit under the sink. Only then would she weep. "When I started acting I remember thinking, 'Ooh, this isn't good news, because we all know how amazing it feels when you see the character you've been following finally crumbles," she says. "And I just couldn't do it."

Now she cries so often in movies that it's become something of a meme-her guttural wails in Midsommar, her blubbering in Little Women, and her screams in Don't Worry Darling have all gone viral. Because a childhood illness affected her breathing, Pugh still has a gravelly voice that lends itself to anguish. She used to imagine her family in coffins to achieve the ultimate ugly cry: "I never wanted it to be prissy. For me, it's snot or nothing." But she's no onetrick pony: equally adept at comedy and action, she has appeared in superhero flicks and indies. She's a magnetic and multifaceted onscreen presence, the kind that doesn't come around very often.

Pugh is in the midst of what might be the biggest year of her career. On the heels of A Good Person-a drama written and directed by her ex-partner Zach Braff, which she also produced-she'll star in two highly anticipated movies: Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two. Both are the sorts of epics that Hollywood rarely makes anymore, especially in an era when franchises, not movie stars, sell tickets.