Namedropper: Florence Pugh is a F*cking Movie Star
Plus: Coronavirus Takes Down Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, and Wrestling?
As the recording starts, there’s a roar of back chatter in the bar and then I finish my sentence:
“…not too bad, but I haven’t been able to sleep…very well.”
“You really should get Valerian,” a confident and husky voice says.
There’s a sigh from me. “I’ve been using just Melatonin a little bit.”
Lies. I’ve been using too much wine and too many tears and too much grief to sleep.
“Yeah. I haven’t done that. There’s lots of big words over here, quite scary ones that you only hear in films and it’s like, ‘Aaaagggh.’”
We both laugh, and by that point I know that Florence Pugh, the poised young woman I’m speaking to, is a fucking movie star.
I interviewed Florence Pugh for Decider a few years ago at Summer TCA, one of the massive press tours that puts little TV critics like myself in the orbit of rising stars and network mainstays. Pugh was there for AMC’s The Little Drummer Girl, but she was already on my radar. She had starred in the mesmerizing Lady Macbeth and there were rumors in the trades that she was up for a role in Greta Gerwig’s next film, Little Women. I wanted to ask her about that, but instead, I took the time to ask about starring opposite Emma Thompson and Emily Watson in King Lear. (Cut from the profile: She said that #MeToo broke during that project and Thompson and Watson essentially circled the wagons around her.)
What Pugh did not know was that I was in the grips of tremendous grief. Just days earlier, I received the call that my very best friend had suffered a life-ending stroke. I had to be the one to meet her parents at the hospital, relay the news to friends, and figure out how to mourn while TCA beckoned. Pugh didn’t know this, but she immediately seemed…well..empathetic to me. Sitting with perfect posture while also kindly suggesting sleep aids, she struck a balance between being utterly magnetic and totally down-to-earth. She was making me feel normal, while making herself seem extraordinary.
Florence Pugh might very well be a new kind of movie star. In person, she has that hypnotic pull that only the biggest of stars have. When you attend TCA enough, you’ll realize that some stars have this “IT” factor, while others don’t. George Clooney has it. Anne Hathaway has it. Florence Pugh has it, too. However, Pugh doesn’t use her charisma to vault herself over others; instead she undermines it with candor, kindness, and wit. It’s not the bawdy, showy, self-deprecation of a Jennifer Lawrence, but it is the sort of attitude that might inspire a starlet to make marmalade on Instagram, causing a viral sensation.
But what Pugh really has, beyond star quality, is talent. Just last year she scored what feels like a Triple Crown in acting with wrestling comedy Fighting With My Family, cult hit horror film Midsommar, and an Oscar nomination for Little Women. Next, she’ll star opposite Scarlett Johansson in Marvel’s Black Widow. In MCU films, the comic book characters are usually the star attraction, but the trailers for Black Widow? They kind of seem to be selling Florence Pugh. Why? Because she’s a fucking movie star.
My Favorite Celeb Story of the Week
Housekeeping note: I completely intended to get a second issue of this newsletter out earlier in the week, but I was honestly just so panicked by how much life has exponentially changed. Many cultural commentators have noted that America seemed to finally take the spread of Coronavirus, or COVID-19 if you’re nasty, seriously when beloved film icon Tom Hanks announced he and wife Rita Wilson had it. However, nothing soothed my soul or calmed my spirit like his son Chet Haze’s address to the nations about it.
Maybe it's his confidence, or maybe it’s just nice to not hear him put on a Jamaican patois, but something about his flat, blasé delivery of, “Yeah, it’s true, my parents got Coronavirus, crazy” just makes me feel like we’re all going to be alright.
Wrestling With Wrestling
So I like wrestling. I like the bonkers theatricality, the exquisite displays of athleticism, and the escapism of it all. However, what I most love about it is how much the audience is involved. The storylines bend and curve based on the audience’s reactions to various performers. The roar of the crowd, chanting “You Suck!” or “You Deserve It!” or “HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!” or even a heckling, “What?” is another character in the spandex soap opera. Being at a live show is the only time I’ve felt like I was truly melting into a crowd. It’s thrilling, cathartic, and as close as we get to the experience of groundlings in the Globe.
So I’m not sure how I feel about Friday’s SmackDown. On the one hand, watching Nikki Cross do her best to sub in for the audience in the empty performance center felt dystopian and underwhelming and sad. On the other, there’s this…
I’m curious if WWE can keep the empty live shows going without the influence of the audience and I’m curious about the status of WrestleMania. But if we’re on the topic of wrestling, I’m mostly curious about why Monday Night RAW and Total Divas star Lana maintains the in-ring storyline that she is married to fellow wrestler Bobby Lashly on her official Instagram, all while breaking kayfabe (and confirming she’s still with Rusev) on their dogs’ ‘gram.
Please Clap, er, Click
Once more, I beg of thee, gentle pilgrims to click articles I wrote this week:
Crimson Peak is Streaming on HBO, If You’re Feeling Horny for Death
Forget Contagion — Your Coronavirus Binge Should Be Counterpart
The Plot Against America on HBO Review: Another Bleak, Beautiful Masterpiece from David Simon
^ Seriously, The Plot Against America is so, so good, but it might have you desperate to run away to Canada.
Until next time, do as Daniel Day-Lewis says and, “STAY ALIVE.”