Florence Pugh reveals being left depressed after filming 'Midsommar'

Florence Pugh revealed the lasting impact of filming her well-known film, Midsommar.

The Oscar-nominated actress shared the emotional toll of filming Midsommar during an appearance on The Louis Theroux Podcast, opening up about how deeply the 2019 A24 psychological horror affected her mental health. 

In the film directed by Ari Aster, Pugh plays Dani, a young woman grieving the loss of her family, who finds herself drawn into a mysterious and unsettling Swedish festival. The role demanded intense emotional vulnerability, and Pugh admitted it left lasting effects. 

“I just can’t exhaust myself like that because it has a knock-on effect,” she admitted. “I think [Midsommar] made me sad for like six months after and I didn’t know why I was depressed.” 

She contrasted this intense experience with her time filming Little Women, which she described as “a fun experience and obviously a completely different tone from Midsommar.” The shift highlighted just how emotionally draining her previous role had been. 

Her depression became most apparent when she returned home for Christmas.

“And then when I got home for Christmas, I was so depressed and I was like, ‘Oh, I think that’s from Midsommar,’ and I didn’t deal with it and I probably shouldn’t do that again,” she said. 

Pugh admitted that it was her first time confronting that “level of grief or mental health in the way that was being asked of me on the page,” which pushed her to fully immerse herself in Dani’s “horrible state.” 

“I really put myself through it,” she explained, recalling the painful process of imagining one of her siblings had died, visualizing their coffins, and attending her entire family’s funeral.  

She added that she essentially subjected herself to extreme emotional strain to deliver the performance the character demanded. However, she confirmed she no longer approaches roles this way because, according to her, it really “f--ked” her up. 

The full weight of the experience hit her while on a flight to film Little Women, immediately after wrapping Midsommar.

Pugh recalled breaking down during the flight, feeling a strange mix of sympathy and regret for the way she had pushed her own emotions in service of the role. 

“But then I felt sorry for what I’d done. It was very, very strange,” she said. 

Midsommar follows young American couple Dani and Christian, who head to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village after a loss in the family. However, things turned bad when guests were invited by the villagers to participate in "festivities that render the pastoral paradise increasingly unnerving and viscerally disturbing."