Florence Pugh

1996-present

Florence Pugh was cast in her first movie at the age of 17 and a few years later received a nomination for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Rising Star Award. Her roles have ranged from period dramas to horror movies to Marvel action flicks, with notable parts in Midsommar, Black Widow, and the television miniseries The Little Drummer Girl. Pugh received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Amy March in the 2019 adaptation of Little Women. Most recently, Pugh portrays Jean Tatlock, who had a passionate romantic relationship with J. Robert Oppenheimer, in Christopher Nolan’s new biopic Oppenheimer.

FULL NAME: Florence Rose Pugh
BORN: January 3, 1996
BIRTHPLACE: Oxford, England, United Kingdom
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Capricorn

Florence Rose Pugh was born on January 3, 1996, in Oxford, England, United Kingdom. Her father was a restaurateur and her mother a dance teacher. Pugh was raised in Oxford, though when she was a girl, her family moved to Spain for three years in the hopes of treating a recurring health issue that turned out to be tracheomalacia. Tracheomalacia results in a partially collapsed trachea, making breathing more difficult. It often sent Pugh to the hospital when she was young. She has said of the condition, “It’s the reason I have a deep voice and why I sound like a goose when I laugh.”

Even as a child, Pugh knew how to enthrall an audience. When she played Mary in a nativity play at the age of 6, she entertained spectators by adopting a northern accent and complaining about varicose veins. “It was the first time I knew the power of being on stage,” Pugh said. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh God, they’re waiting for me, they’re listening to everything I say, and I have complete control.’” As a teenager, Pugh sang and played guitar to cover songs such as “Wonderwall” under the username “Flossie Rose” on YouTube.

Pugh attended the private schools Wychwood and St. Edward’s in Oxford but didn’t excel academically. “I don’t think I was built for school,” Pugh told The New York Times in 2020. “I just wanted to perform and make music and make pots.”

Back in 2018, Pugh said of her childhood, “I grew up in a very loud and dramatic household, and we loved being in the spotlight.” Her two older siblings also became actors. Her older brother, Toby Sebastian, portrayed Prince Trystane Martell on Game of Thrones and her older sister, Arabella Gibbins, trained as an actor and has worked onstage, as a singer, and a vocal coach. Pugh also has a younger sister, Rafaela, who was born when Pugh was 7.

While a 17-year-old Pugh was still in school, she participated in an open audition and landed a part in the 2014 movie The Falling. She received praised for her work in this role. In 2015, Pugh was cast in a pilot for an American TV show. She subsequently relocated to Los Angeles, where her negative experiences included the production telling her to lose weight. The pilot didn’t become a series. She later told Vogue, “When it didn’t go through, that was when I realized how relieved I was.”

Being cast in Lady Macbeth (2016), based on an 1865 Russian novella, reignited Pugh’s love of acting. She received a British Independent Film Award for this role. In 2018, she appeared in The Outlaw King as a medieval bride to Chris Pine’s Scottish ruler and in the Liam Neeson thriller The Commuter. That same year Pugh found success on British television in the miniseries The Little Drummer Girl, based on the John le Carré novel, and appeared as Cordelia in a production of King Lear.

In 2019, Pugh starred in three very different films. She embodied emotional turmoil in the horror flick Midsommar, demonstrated wrestling moves in the comedic Fighting With My Family, and played the iconic Amy March in an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Her work in Little Women nabbed Pugh an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Pugh next appeared in Black Widow alongside Scarlett Johansson. The movie’s release was delayed from 2020 until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Pugh portrayed Yelena, a surrogate sister to Johansson’s title character. She and Johansson developed a camaraderie that was reflected both on and off screen. After Pugh teased her co-star about Black Widow’s fighting pose, a similar interaction was added to the script.

In 2022, Pugh co-starred with Harry Styles in the Olivia Wilde–directed film Don’t Worry Darling.

Her latest role is in Oppenheimer, a biopic about the father of the atomic bomb from director Christopher Nolan. Pugh portrays Jean Tatlock, the graduate student who J. Robert Oppenheimer fell in love with in the 1930s despite their decade age gap. Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, went on to marry Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt), but his relationship with Tatlock continued and profoundly impacted the physicist.

Pugh dated actor Zach Braff, star of the TV show Scrubs, from 2019 until 2022. The two were friends, dating back to 2018, before beginning their romantic relationship. Pugh appeared in Braff’s short film In the Time It Takes to Get There (2019) and in his 2023 feature film A Good Person. The pair quarantined together during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and also adopted a dog.

Braff is two decades older than Pugh, a fact that drew criticism on her social media. When she wished Braff a happy birthday on Instagram in April 2020, she had to quickly shut down comments due to the negative response. However, Pugh didn’t back down from defending their relationship, declaring on her Instagram page, “I am 24 years old. I do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love and I would never in my life tell anyone who they can and cannot love.”

• It’s a strange side of fame that you’re allowed to be torn apart by thousands of people even though you didn’t put that piece of you out there.
• I don’t think I was built for school. I just wanted to perform and make music and make pots.
  

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