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Actress Recounts Toll of Working on Excessive Movies: ‘Abused Myself’

red and black theater seatsActress Recounts Toll of Working on Excessive Movies: ‘Abused Myself’

By Movieguide® Contributor

Actress Florence Pugh described the mental abuse she put herself through on the set of MIDSOMMAR, something she has since vowed she will never do again.

“There have been some roles where I’ve given too much and I’ve been broken for a long while afterwards,” Pugh told the “Reign with Josh Smith” podcast. “Like when I did MIDSOMMAR, I definitely felt like I abused myself in the places that I got myself to go.”

“Each day the content would be getting more weird and harder to do,” she added while on the “Off the Menu” podcast. “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.”

The mental anguish she put herself through carried over even after she finished filming MIDSOMMAR. Even though her next movie, LITTLE WOMEN, was much more uplifting, she found herself still concerned about where she had gotten herself to go for MIDSOMMAR.

“I remember looking [out of the plane] feeling immense guilt because I felt like I’d left [Dani] in that field in that [emotional] state. It’s so weird. I’ve never had that before…Obviously, that’s probably a psychological thing where I felt immense guilt of what I’d put myself through but I definitely felt like I’d left her there in that field to be abused…” Pugh said. “Almost like I’d created this person and then I just left her there to go and do another movie.”

The damage done to Pugh is no surprise given the gross blasphemy and excessive content present in the movie. A portion of Movieguide®’s review reads:

MIDSOMMAR ultimately succumbs to excessive, gratuitous, uninspiring perversion, graphic violence, gore, explicit nudity, foul language, and murder, despite some convincing performances and excellent editing. There are no characters representing a Christian perspective or morally redemptive values. In fact, the story contains some desecration of Christian symbols. MIDSOMMAR certainly isn’t a movie for media-wise audiences, but MOVIEGUIDE® advises all moviegoers that it’s one horror movie they should skip.

Pugh isn’t the only actor to suffer mental anguish after taking on excessive roles. SPIDER-MAN star Tom Holland, for example, took a year-long break from acting after finishing THE CROWDED ROOM, a show where he portrays a mentally disturbed man.

READ MORE: TOM HOLLAND TAKING A YEAR OFF FROM ACTING

“There did come a time when I was like, I need to have a break,” Holland said in the summer of 2023. “I disappeared, I went to Mexico for a week and had some time on a beach and laid low, and now I’m taking a year off and that is a result of how difficult this show was.”

READ MORE: CREATING EXCESSIVE CONTENT TAKES ITS TOLL ON CREATORS


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