Actress Florence Pugh has revealed Hollywood executives told her she needed to slim down and change the shape of her face if she wanted a successful career.
The 26-year-old ‘Don’t Worry, Darling’ actress has opened up about her early days in the entertainment industry and revealed she was horrified when she headed to Los Angeles as a teenager and industry bosses told her to make a number of changes to her appearance.
Florence told The Telegraph newspaper: “I felt very lucky and grateful, and couldn’t believe that I had got this top-of-the-game job … [But] all the things that they were trying to change about me – whether it was my weight, my look, the shape of my face, the shape of my eyebrows – that was so not what I wanted to do, or the industry I wanted to work in.”
The actress’ first big role came in 2014 movie ‘The Falling’ and she went on to land a part in a US TV movie called ‘Studio City’, but Florence felt disappointed with her experience in the States and worried she’d made the wrong career choice.
She went on: “I’d thought the film business would be like [my experience of making] ‘The Falling’, but actually, this was what the top of the game looked like, and I felt I’d made a massive mistake.”
However, Florence continued with her acting career back in her native UK and she scored a leading role in 2016’s ‘Lady Macbeth’ and she said the project made her “fall back in love with cinema”.
She added: “I think it’s far too easy for people in this industry to push you left and right. And I was lucky enough to discover when I was 19 what kind of a performer I wanted to be.”
Florence went on to insist she wants to tackle roles that focus on her acting ability rather than her appearance, explaining: “When I could be naked at whatever size I was, and bare-faced, and the acting could speak for itself. There’s nothing for people to be distracted by: they can’t be like, ‘Oh, I don’t like the make-up’. It was a wonderful reminder: ‘Oh, yeah – this is who you are’.”
Source: Bang Showbiz
