She is the woman everyone in Hollywood is talking about – and with good reason.
Florence Pugh’s chilling portrayal of sociopathic temptress Cathy Ames in Netflix’s hit series East Of Eden has earned the British actress the biggest rave reviews of her career and put her firmly in the running for a Best Actress Emmy, the TV equivalent of an Oscar.
The seven-part adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic tale of good versus evil has become the streaming giant’s most successful drama of the year, with Pugh, 30, emerging as its undisputed star.
But while critics have been falling over themselves to praise her mesmerising performance, it is another aspect of her work that has set Hollywood tongues wagging.
For in an industry where actresses routinely turn to body doubles for the most graphic sex scenes, Pugh has made a point of doing them all herself.
And with three intimacy coordinators on the East of Eden set, she certainly had her work cut out.
Her character Cathy wastes little time in deploying her considerable sexual charms, seducing an older male teacher before embarking on affairs involving both her husband and his brother.
As the ruthless Cathy eventually finds herself running a brothel, the role demands multiple scenes of full nudity – something that has largely stunned executives in Hollywood who have lauded Pugh for her ‘bravery’.
Florence Pugh’s chilling portrayal of sociopathic temptress Cathy Ames in Netflix’s hit series East Of Eden has earned the British actress the biggest rave reviews of her career
While the Tinseltown sisterhood applauds Pugh's approach to on-screen nudity, they are less fawning of the Make America Great Again darling Sydney Sweeney, who posed nude in a campaign for Novig
Although some have compared her readiness to disrobe to the recent controversial adverts featuring actress Sydney Sweeney and two well-placed American footballs, which we’ll come back to.
A senior executive at Disney Studios told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The reason Florence has become such a major talking point is that it’s so rare for an actress of her stature, or any actress with that level of name recognition, to do sex scenes any more, particularly ones as intimate and graphic as she does in East Of Eden.’
The source continued: ‘For many years actresses were coerced into doing things they didn’t want to do. You only have to think about Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct and how she was tricked into doing that infamous leg-crossing scene.’
Stone wrote in her 2021 memoir The Beauty Of Living Twice that director Paul Verhoeven tricked her into removing her underwear, claiming the light would bounce off her in a way that nothing intimate would be revealed.
She said the first time she realised her private parts were exposed was when she watched the finished film in a room full of male producers and agents.
The Disney executive added: ‘When the #MeToo movement came along, Hollywood listened and adopted intimacy coordinators and stunt doubles so no actress ever had to feel she was being coerced.
‘It’s practically unheard of for actresses to do nudity. For Pugh to turn all that on its head, well, it’s brave of her.’
Stars including Julia Roberts, Sarah Jessica Parker, Megan Fox, Jessica Alba, Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Garner have all been adamant about refusing to do naked scenes, with Roberts declaring: ‘To act with my clothes on is a performance. To act with my clothes off is a documentary. I would never do nudity in a film.’
Which is why Pugh’s decision is all the more unusual and refreshing. Pugh, who made her name in films like Little Women, Don’t Worry Darling and Oppenheimer as well as Marvel blockbuster Spider-Man: Brand New Day, says her ‘liberating’ childhood made her refuse to feel ashamed of her body.
Born in Oxfordshire, the third of four children to Clinton Pugh, a successful restaurateur, and Deborah, a former dancer, she spent several years living in Manilva, Spain, after the family moved there on doctor’s orders when Florence was diagnosed with asthma and tracheomalacia, a rare condition causing a weak windpipe.
The family moved back to Britain when she was six, and she was educated privately at Wychwood School and St Edward’s School in Oxford.
The 5ft 4in actress has described her upbringing in an artistic household (two of her siblings are also actors) as allowing her to ‘view the human body as natural rather than something to be hidden or ashamed of’.
She first caught the less racy eye of Sunday night BBC One viewers in 2018, as a radical actress in an adaptation of John le Carre’s espionage drama The Little Drummer Girl.
Pugh recently wore a see-through dress through which her nipples were visible for an East of Eden press event in Paris
Her big break came a year later when she starred in the critically-acclaimed horror film Midsommar, and then as Amy March in the period drama Little Women, which earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.
Pugh was ordered to lose weight early in her career but always felt comfortable in her own skin.
In an interview with Louis Theroux she said: ‘I’m quite confident. I’m quite happy in my skin. I’ve always been able to make sure that I’m heard.
‘That being said, even though I know that I believe that, and even though I know that I felt that at the time, there are plenty of things that I remember where it was just completely inappropriate to have asked me to do that, to have directed me in that way.’
She spoke of one ‘s***’ intimacy coordinator who made her feel ‘weird and so awkward’ but added: ‘My view is changing about it as well because I’m now having fantastic experiences with intimacy coordinators.
‘I’ve been able to understand better through working with great ones in sex scenes, finding the story of what it is, what kind of sex it is, how do you touch each other, how long have you been having sex for?
‘When I worked with a fantastic coordinator, I was like, of course, this is what I’ve been missing, understanding the dance of intimacy as opposed to just shooting a sex scene.’
East of Eden is directed by Zoe Kazan, granddaughter of Elia Kazan who directed the 1955 adaptation which turned James Dean into a screen icon.
She said the graphic sex scenes were never aimed at titillating the audience. Kazan wrote the part with Pugh in mind and said both she and the actress agreed the sex had to ‘work’, which is why many of the men Cathy has sex with in the brothel are virtually faceless.
It emerges in the series that Cathy becomes a monster after being sexually abused as a child. Kazan said: ‘I wanted to put it on screen as work, not as an objectification of her body or something scintillating.’
Professor Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, 56, head of University of California, Los Angeles’s under-graduate film programme and director of Body Parts, a documentary examining the representation of nudity in cinema, believes Pugh ‘owns’ her scenes and confidence changes the balance of power on set.
‘Owning her nudity makes her appear more confident and gives less power to the other people involved, the director and producers and cameraman, who have their own vision of a scene,’ she said.
Rather than retreating from controversy, Pugh appears to relish challenging outrage.
On a fashion show red carpet in 2022 she wore a striking sheer pink Valentino gown through which her nipples were visible, prompting a storm of commentary. ‘It really wound people up,’ she told Elle magazine.
‘It’s the freedom that people are scared of, the fact I’m comfortable and happy. Unfortunately, we’ve become so terrified of the human body that we can’t even look at my two little cute nipples behind fabric in a way that isn’t sexual.
‘We need to keep reminding everybody that there is more than one reason for women’s bodies to exist.’
She added: ‘I speak the way I do about my body because I’m not trying to hide the cellulite on my thigh or the squidge in between my arm and my boob. I would much rather lay it all out.’
She later took aim at online trolls who had commented on her breast size, writing on her Instagram page: ‘I’m fully aware of my breast size and am not scared by it.
‘What’s more concerning is why are you so scared of breasts? Small? Large? Left? Right? Only one? Maybe none? What is so terrifying? Grow up. Respect people. Respect bodies. Respect all women.’
Yet, while the Tinseltown sisterhood applauds her attitude, they are less fawning of the Make America Great Again darling Sydney Sweeney.
Like Pugh, the Euphoria star isn’t held back by body insecurities. Yet she was roundly criticised for appearing naked in recent commercials for a sports gambling firm.
Most of the ire came from female athletes who objected to what they view as the hyper-sexualisation of women in sport.
And the contrast has prompted accusations of hypocrisy: Why is Pugh’s nudity more readily interpreted as art while Sweeney’s can provoke such fierce disapproval?
The Disney executive believes politics and public image play a part.
‘There is some hypocrisy. Sydney Sweeney is unabashedly working class and a MAGA supporter and gets slammed every time she bares her breasts, while you get a woke middle-class thespian like Florence Pugh doing it and it’s “art”.
‘You could argue both women are using their bodies to further their careers.’
Crisis communications consultant Dave Quast told The Mail on Sunday that audiences bring different expectations to a film performance and a commercial campaign.
He said: ‘Sexuality within a dramatic role can register differently from sexuality used to sell a product or promote a celebrity persona.’
Pugh, he said, is more closely associated with prestige drama, encouraging audiences to interpret intimate scenes as part of a character’s development.
Sweeney, however, is judged by a different standard and ‘of course, politics might intensify the reaction’. She, after all, isn’t known for her liberal sensibilities, as Pugh is.
The British star regularly voices her support for Palestine, and in 2020 apologised for past cultural appropriation.
At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, Pugh uploaded a three-page apology on her Instagram account, lamenting her ‘white fragility’ and ‘guilt’ at having had her hair braided into cornrows as a 17-year-old.
Hollywood lawyer and columnist Kurt Schlichter offered a more provocative explanation.
‘The fact is, Florence Pugh is not known as a knock-out bombshell, let’s put it that way,’ he said.
‘Sydney Sweeney on the other hand knows what she’s got and she knows how to play it and she frankly doesn’t seem too concerned and that’s her real crime in critics’ minds.’
Whether that explains the different reactions or merely reflects the prejudices of those making them, the debate highlights the contradictory expectations still placed on actresses.
They are expected to be attractive but not too overtly sexual. Confident, but not provocative. Willing to expose themselves for a role but somehow immune to the scrutiny that follows.
Pugh, at least, appears determined to play by her own rules.
Away from the controversy, she is reportedly looking forward to a well-earned holiday with her boyfriend of two years, actor Finn Cole, also 30, best known for Peaky Blinders.
She has kept their relationship largely private, having previously endured intense scrutiny over her three-year romance with actor Zach Braff, 21 years her senior.
Professionally, there is little sign of her slowing down.
She is due to appear in Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three, both scheduled for release in December.
In the unlikely event that either blockbuster requires East of Eden-grade nudity, their directors needn’t worry about Pugh’s shyness.