Florence Pugh takes her grandparents to watch her films, including those with racy scenes

NZ Herald

03-05-2025

'I'm like, 'Not surprised'. But he was like, 'You were brilliant, absolutely brilliant, darling'.'
In Midsommar, Pugh plays Dani, who finds herself trapped by a Swedish cult while travelling with a group after enduring a huge tragedy in her life.
She continued: 'I've also done many a sex scene in my career, and also unfortunately, that's part of the course of what my family watch.
'The bit that was just so I remember going like, 'Oh my God, I forgot about that', is when there's a naked body that's splayed over breathing organisms, and I was like, how am I supposed to explain this to my grandparents?'
The actress said after 'working so hard' on a film, her family always wanted to see her performance and joked: 'You watch it with all the people that you've taken and you're like [mouthing], 'Oh, f***'.'
Pugh added: 'My whole family are such brilliant supporters. They will be there come rain or shine.
'Even when I'm not in the city to attend the premiere [of one of my films], they will be there and they will show up in, like, full Pugh force.
'They are just like massive supporters, no matter what I do.'
Pugh has performed sex scenes in several films, including Christopher Nolan's blockbuster Oppenheimer.
During a pivotal moment, Pugh's Communist Jean Tatlock gets extremely intimate with the nuclear scientist, portrayed by Cillian Murphy.
Pugh also lounges topless in a hotel room chair, although in the version for audiences in the Middle East and India, a computer-generated black dress covering her body down to the thigh is put in place.
Pugh also had to film one 'sweaty and exhausting' scene eight times in We Live In Time with co-star Andrew Garfield.
The 29-year-old played Almut in the 2024 romantic-comedy, which follows the life of a couple over the course of a decade.
Pugh had to repeat a birthing scene several times but admitted it was 'exciting' to portray a couple's sex life, adding: 'I have always wanted to do a love story. You actually get to understand the relationship, and what point they're at in the relationship, through the style of sex they have.'
Speaking earlier this year, she continued: 'It was insane, and it was amazing. The only problem was, I didn't have a baby that came out. So I was just so exhausted and sweaty and tired and I'd got no endorphins or anything. We worked with a midwife.
'Tiring, amazing, exhausting, so beautiful to watch, because it is just all about life. And it was like Andrew and I were preparing for a baby, and it was really, really beautiful. It was so emotional, it was like we had a child.'
In Thunderbolts, Marvel's latest cinema release, Pugh returns as Scarlett Johansson's one-time Black Widow comrade Yelena Belova.
She told Variety her grandmother 'loved the movie'.