Florence Pugh was apprehensive about playing Dani in Midsommar because the character has experienced so much trauma.
The British actress, who has been building up her credits with films such as Lady Macbeth and Fighting with my Family, portrays Dani in Ari Aster’s latest horror, which follows a couple who travels to Sweden to attend a mid-summer festival, which quickly devolves into a violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.
In a new interview with Stylist, The Little Drummer Girl star admitted she was anxious about getting into character because Dani comes with a lot of emotional baggage.
“I was apprehensive to get into character as Dani because I’ve never witnessed anything close to the trauma that she has,” Florence explained. “She’s dealing with so much pain. And I think the scary and horrific thing about this film is just watching someone not know how to deal with that grief.”
The 23-year-old confessed that she had no idea how many “atrocious images” she’d seen while filming until she watched it for the first time, and that it wasn’t scary on set because “we were in a bright, sunny field with flowers and butterflies”.
Elsewhere in the interview, Florence insisted that the horror genre is having a resurgence at the moment because they offer something more than cheap scares.
“I think that the quality of these films is deeper. We’re so bored of jump-scare films that don’t mean anything,” she reasoned. “The new horrors that have received such great press have something else going on – you feel emotionally connected to these people. And that’s what makes it exciting.”
Midsommar, which also features Jack Reynor and Will Poulter, is in cinemas now.
