It’s not unheard of for actors to push themselves beyond unimaginable limits to nail their on-screen performance. There are myriads of instances wherein someone ends up taking the cruel yet beautiful art of method acting a little too far and pays the price for it with their sanity instead. And that’s when it starts to snake in, the inability to snap out of character and the ominous sense that they’re losing their grip on reality.
Leonardo DiCaprio subjected himself to appalling conditions for The Revenant, whereas Heath Ledger isolated himself completely for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. And Florence Pugh put herself through just as tormenting circumstances for her lurid performance in 2019’s Midsommar.
Midsommar – A Blend of Horror & Gore With A Compelling Plot
Ari Aster’s disturbing folk thriller was no short of a spectacle, a rather heavy and unsettling one at that, but a spectacle nonetheless. When a group of friends travels to rural Sweden for a summer retreat, what was supposed to be a blissful midsummer festival quickly ends up turning into a pagan horror when they get embroiled with a harrowing cult.
Starring Florence Pugh and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3‘s Will Poulter, the movie is a wild concoction of ghastly violence, sacrifice, and an inexplicably eerie sense of dread that seems to be present during the entirety of its runtime.
Although it had a lukewarm box office reception and polarized the general audience, Aster’s incredible direction paired with Pugh’s bone-chilling and sensational delivery in the film garnered a throng of positive reviews from critics. Little did they know though, the MCU actress completely tortured herself for the part.
Florence Pugh’s Dark Experience Filming It
In her BBC Radio 1 interview not too long ago, Pugh 27, admitted that Midsommar was perhaps the most disturbing experience she’s ever had. In her career spanning nearly a decade, the Black Widow star had never once portrayed a character in as much agony as her protagonist Dani was in the critically acclaimed horror/thriller. And that definitely took a toll on her.
“I’ve never had this ever before with any of my characters. I’d never played someone that was in that much pain before, and I would put myself in really sh*tty situations that maybe other actors don’t need to do but I would just be imagining the worst things.”
By the time production wrapped up on the film, Pugh was certain she’d abused herself to the point of atrocity, all for a gripping and haunting performance that she unequivocally delivered.
“Each day the content would be getting more weird and harder to do. I was putting things in my head that were getting worse and more bleak. I think by the end I probably, most definitely abused my own self in order to get that performance.”
Midsommar can be streamed on Netflix.
Source: Indie Wire
