Midsommar is an intense film to look at, so you possibly can solely think about what it was like for Florence Pugh to movie the A24 psychological thriller. Now, 4 years after its launch, Pugh is opening up concerning the undertaking and the “immense guilt” she felt when it was over.

Pugh performed Dani within the Ari Aster movie, a psychology scholar coping with the loss of life of her dad and mom and sister who goes on a visit to Sweden to go to a commune for his or her annual midsummer pageant along with her poisonous boyfriend and his pals. “After I did it, I used to be so wrapped up in her and I’ve by no means had this ever earlier than with any of my characters,” Pugh stated of Dani on the Off Menu podcast this week. “I’d by no means performed somebody that was in that a lot ache earlier than, and I might put myself in actually shitty conditions that perhaps different actors don’t must do however I might simply be imagining the worst issues.”

Dani goes by means of many tragic experiences throughout her time on the commune, and Pugh was struggling all through manufacturing to get into the right headspace. “Every day the content material can be getting extra bizarre and more durable to do,” she stated. “I used to be placing issues in my head that have been getting worse and extra bleak. I feel by the tip I most likely, most positively abused my very own self with the intention to get that efficiency.”

It wasn’t simply the psychological challenges, however the bodily as properly. Pugh defined that the movie shot in a “highly regarded area,” saying “I wouldn’t say all of it was pleasurable.” By the point she left, and needed to transfer on to Boston to movie Greta Gerwig’s Little Girls, she felt like she was leaving Dani behind. “I keep in mind trying [out the plane] and feeling immense guilt as a result of I felt like I’d left [Dani] in that area in that [emotional] state,” she stated. “It’s so bizarre. I’ve by no means had that earlier than. Clearly, that’s most likely a psychological factor the place I felt immense guilt of what I’d put myself by means of however I positively felt like I’d left her there in that area to be abused, nearly like I’d created this individual after which I simply left her there to go and do one other film.”

Pugh has spoken earlier than concerning the emotional toll Midsommar had on her. In 2021, the actress shared a shot of the movie on Instagram with an extended message connected. “This was THE scene,” she wrote of the second when Dani has a panic assault surrounded by the opposite younger ladies within the commune who mimic her to an intense climax. “The scene the place we might all throw our guts out on the ground and conflict cry and scream in one another’s faces…I keep in mind the primary take being so lengthy, for much longer than is displayed within the movie that you just all watched.”

She continued, saying “When Ari stated minimize, all of us clung on to one another’s arms and dug our nails into one another’s palms and wept. Sobbed. Heaved. I keep in mind it being actually arduous to cease…Actually, these ladies made this scene doable. I knew I might by no means be so open and so uncooked and so exhausted like I used to be that day ever once more. Scenes that make you damage, or cringe, or flip away from the display screen when watching are scenes designed to make you’re feeling, for ten seconds at the very least, essentially the most human. However for us, it was hours. Lovely, arduous, proud hours.”