Playing a grieving woman addicted to opioids is the closest to a romantic comedy Pugh will ever get, the Oscar-nominated star said.
Florence Poug has a checklist when choosing roles: they must be intense, and the character must cry…a lot.
“It’s no secret that I only cast very intense roles,” Pugh said at the Zach Braff premiere.A good personin which she plays a opioid addict grappling with grief following a fatal car accident (via Variety). “This isn’t the first time I’ve been reduced to tears at just about every scene I’ve been in. I love finding ugliness in humans. I like to be raw. I love being given a script that challenges me and I’ve never chosen a role unless I’ve been scared of it.”
Pugh added of writer-director Braff, who she was romantically involved with for years before the film, “And he’s someone who knew me, knew my potential and wanted to work with me. I think that it would have been strange for him to write a Nancy Meyers thing for me to be like, ‘So… you’re not going to cry in this movie.’ I’d be like, ‘Oh my God!’ “
The ‘Oppenheimer’ actress went on to talk about Braff knowing her darker on-screen inclinations, “I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. I think it means more that he could believe that I could do it.
Pugh also produced “A Good Person,” which stars Morgan Freeman, Molly Shannon, Celeste O’Connor, Zoe Lister-Jones and Chinaza Uche. The film was shot in Braff’s native New Jersey.
“When we moved to town, Florence felt like we were in a Nancy Meyers movie,” Braff said, adding that the project was “incredibly emotionally taxing for Florence” because of the intensity of the subject matter.
“I wanted to write something for Florence, and that kind of came out to me,” the “Garden State” filmmaker said. “I am in awe of his talent. It’s like you’re with the most amazing violinist in the world and you’re going to write him a piece, you’re not going to write something simple. You’re going to write something that’s going to grab them all because you know they can do it.
While Pugh is upcoming roles definitely do not include a Nancy Meyers film, the romantic comedy The director recently made headlines for the Netflix movie “Paris Paramount,” which reportedly has a budget of between $130 million and $150 million. Netflix declined to comment on the production, which is expected to star Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz, Owen Wilson and Michael Fassbender. The film marks Meyers’ return to Hollywood since 2015’s “The Intern,” with Meyers confirmed to be writing, producing and directing the “semi-autobiographical rom-com,” as described by Puck.
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