Imagine being 19, landing an opportunity in Hollywood, and having one of the first things people tell you be that you need to lose weight.
That was what Florence Pugh said she experienced when she began trying to make her way in the United States. After landing a role in a television pilot, people started talking to her about the changes they expected her to make, and one of the main ones had to do with her weight.
The actress recalled that they also wanted to change other aspects of her appearance, such as the shape of her face and her eyebrows. For Florence, that completely clashed with her idea of what it meant to be an actress and even made her think she had made a mistake by entering that industry.
The experience was so unpleasant that she decided to return to England and came to believe that her career might have been over. Shortly afterward, Lady Macbeth appeared, a film in which, as she explained, she was able to fall in love with cinema again because she could be exactly as she was.
Years later, Florence spoke about that period to make it clear that she was never willing to transform her body simply to fit the image Hollywood expected of her.