ANYA TAYLOR-JOY

Florence Pugh swaggers through Hollywood with the kind of unapologetic energy that makes you think she could easily run a pub in Lancashire. She has completely smashed her way into the film industry's elite tier by refusing to play the quiet, fragile starlet. Rocking a deep, gravelly voice, a sharp septum piercing, and a facial expression that constantly looks like she’s about to call you out on your nonsense, she has built a massive reputation as a proper, no-nonsense powerhouse who completely commands every single frame of film she touches.

She first properly slapped global audiences awake in 2019, pulling off a staggering double-whammy that most actors don't manage in a lifetime. First, she went completely feral in Ari Aster’s psychological horror nightmare Midsommar, delivering a grief-stricken, screaming performance that became an instant legendary meme. Then, she flipped the script entirely to play Amy March in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, taking a traditionally disliked literary character and making her so thoroughly human and sharp that it bagged her a fully deserved Academy Award nomination.

Instead of getting comfortable in prestige period dramas, Florence decided to go on an absolute tear across massive global blockbusters. She jumped straight into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Yelena Belova in Black Widow, instantly stealing the entire film from Scarlett Johansson through pure, sarcastic banter and a running gag about superhero landing poses. Christopher Nolan immediately snapped her up to bring a fiercely intelligent presence to Oppenheimer, Denis Villeneuve draped her in regal sci-fi armor as Princess Irulan in Dune: Part Two, and she broke everyone's hearts opposite Andrew Garfield in the heavy-hitting romance We Live in Time.

Lately, she has been completely dominating the cultural conversation, effortlessly bouncing between massive blockbusters and heavy-hitting television dramas. She led the charge in Marvel's anti-hero ensemble Thunderbolts*, reprised her royal role for the epic conclusion in Dune: Part Three, and went toe-to-toe with Robert Downey Jr. in the massive comic-book spectacle Avengers: Doomsday. She’s also gone full prestige literature, playing a brilliantly calculating antihero in Netflix’s massive seven-part epic adaptation of John Steinbeck's East of Eden, and is gearing up to lead the highly anticipated emotional drama The Midnight Library. Florence Pugh has spent her career proving that you don't need to conform to Hollywood's manufactured, polite standards to win—you just need to show up, speak your mind, and let everyone else try to keep up.

Insomniacs Trivia

• The Acoustic YouTube Alias: Long before she was an Oscar-nominated megastar or a Marvel superhero, Florence was trying to kickstart a career as a singer-songwriter. When she was a teenager in 2013, she used to upload acoustic cover songs to YouTube under the completely random alias Flossie Rose, sitting in her bedroom strumming a guitar and belts out raspy versions of Oasis's Wonderwall and Bob Dylan tracks before the acting world snatched her up.

• The Childhood Climate Escape: Florence’s signature husky, gravelly voice wasn't developed from a heavy smoking habit—it’s actually the result of a severe childhood medical condition called tracheomalacia, which caused her windpipe to partially collapse and left her with constant breathing issues. It was so incredibly bad when she was young that her entire family uprooted their lives from Oxford and moved to a tiny, blistering hot coastal village in Spain for three years just hoping the warmer climate would keep her out of the hospital.

• The Feige-Defying Skyscraper Jump: While filming her return as the cynical spy Yelena Belova for Marvel's Thunderbolts*, the script called for her character to execute a terrifying base jump off the top of the Merdeka 118 building—the second-tallest skyscraper on the entire planet. Marvel’s massive legal and insurance teams were completely terrified and outright banned her from doing it, but Florence went on a massive personal campaign, went straight over their heads to boss Kevin Feige, and successfully argued until they let her film the massive, stomach-churning stunt herself without a double.

Insomniacs Take

Florence Pugh is an absolute force of nature. In an industry full of heavily managed, media-trained stars who are completely terrified of saying the wrong thing or looking unpolished, she brings a raw, brilliant authenticity that you simply cannot fake. She treats filmmaking like a proper, honest shift—shaving her head for a role, doing her own unhinged stunts, or eating raw pasta on her social media while laughing at the absurdity of fame. She is a proper, once-in-a-generation talent, and modern cinema is infinitely more exciting because she refuses to be silenced.

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