‘I definitely put my foot down – I love food’
It’s hard not to rate
Florence Pugh. The energy, the acting nous, the way you get the sense that – at 27 – she is truly dining at the buffet of life, choosing what she damn wants. You know: that she’s properly making the most out of the exciting, opportunity-rich life she’s living.
I think she also generates that quiet nod of respect because you get the sense that she knows who she is, what she will tolerate – and what she won’t. Unafraid to raise eyebrows (remember all the brouhaha over her wearing a sheer dress that showed her nipples?) or simply say ‘no’ in the face of others’ expectations.
Well, in a new interview, Florence discusses how she deployed this boundary-preserving attitude in response to the intense diet pressure Hollywood places on young actresses.
Plus, how she believes her refusing to toe the line by losing more weight from her (let’s face it, already very slim and petite) frame led to her ‘confusing’ many people during the early years of her career.
‘Body image for women is a major thing from the moment you start growing thighs and bums and boobs and all of it, everything starts changing and your relationship with food starts changing,’ she told Vogue in a new video.
Oxford-born Florence speaks while preparing a delicious looking tray of garlic crostini (her dad’s a successful chef and restauranteur, FYI). Oh, and a crisp full-proof martini – no Dry Jan here.
‘I had a weird chapter with the beginning of my career but that was because I wasn’t complying and that was confusing to people, especially in Hollywood,’ she reflects.
‘I think women – especially young women – in Hollywood are obviously getting themselves in all these ways in order to get whatever opportunity they need to get because that’s just the way that it’s been.’
But the way she tells it, Florence wasn’t prepared to fall in line.
‘And when I went and did that project it was expected that you would be on whatever diet that you needed to be on and for me that was just shocking because i’d never done that before,’ she says.
It’s worth noting that she doesn’t reveal what specific project she’s referring to. But while promoting Black Widow in 2021, Florence told The Sunday Times about a time when – while auditioning for a pilot of Studio City in Hollywood – she was instructed to lose weight.
‘I was a baby and I thought that was Hollywood,’ she told The Sunday Times. And I thought, OK, this is how it works here. This is what they do. And then I felt stupid because I thought, well, of course, how could I come to LA and not have expected to have my weight discussed in a meeting?’ She was still a teenager at the time. Cue heavy sigh.
But, evidently, as her feet grew more steady in the acting world, Florence felt able to stand her ground. ‘Yeah, I think I definitely put my put down in that aspect,’ she smiles in the new Vogue video. ‘I love food.’
Exactly as she should. Keep doing you, Miss Pugh.
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