Florence Pugh returned home for Christmas after filming Little Women and realized the emotional toll of Midsommar had followed her off set. She said she was depressed for about 6 months before connecting it to the 2019 horror film.
Pugh played Dani, an American drawn with her boyfriend, played by Jack Reynor, into a violent cult in rural Sweden. She told The Louis Theroux Podcast in 2025, “I think [Midsommar] made me sad for like six months after and I didn’t know why I was depressed.”
Little Women had been a lighter experience, and Pugh believes she temporarily pushed aside what Midsommar had taken out of her. “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.”
During production, Pugh pushed herself to make Dani’s distress sound painful rather than simply tearful. She saw the film as a chance to prove what she could do and said she would “basically put myself through hell.”
She’s since stopped using that approach. “But I don’t do that anymore. It really f***** me up.”
