The trailer for We Live in Time shows Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield’s characters falling in love in the new romance movie. However, we also get glimpses of the emotionally heavy elements of Pugh’s character being diagnosed with cancer. Despite being offered a bald cap, the British actress gets real about why she chose to shave her head for the upcoming 2024 film instead.
Plenty of actresses in the past have made the bold move to shave their heads for roles, including Natalie Portman in V For Vendetta, Charlize Theron for Mad Max: Fury Road, Kate Hudson for Sia’s Music, and more. Florence Pugh was just the next in a long line of actresses wholly dedicated to the craft.
During an interview with Vanity Fair, Florence Pugh said director John Crowley gave her the option to look at wigs compared to a real-life bald look. Here’s why the Academy Award nominee shot that idea down:
I just stopped him mid-sentence and I was like, ‘John, no one can play a character like this in a movie like this and not do the thing that is needed to be done. And if you don’t want to do it, I believe that you shouldn’t be doing a story like this.’
I have to agree with the Don’t Worry Darling actress. If Florence Pugh had to wear a bald cap to portray a cancer patient, it would make it that much harder to fully absorb her character's life transformation. It seems the talented actress without question knew she either had to be all in or all out. Understandably, not all actresses could afford to shave their heads. They might have a role following they'd need hair for, or they may not want to spend years regrowing their hair out. Still, the actress' take on the wig matter is commendable.
The first look at We Live in Time wasn’t the first moment we saw Florence Pugh with a shaved head. Her short-haired platinum blonde look was displayed when she attended an event for Lotus Cars in London last year. At the time, the look was seen as yet another edgy fashion moment for Pugh following her lengthy stint with sheer looks.
While we may think the Little Women actress looked so punk rock with that hair and red hot jumpsuit, Pugh hilariously compared her new look to Guy Fieri! When Florence Pugh introduced her new shaved head to the public at the 2023 Met Gala, of course fans and the media chatted about it. The Black Widow actress opened up about the rumors people were saying about her when they first saw her new style:
I think there was this weird rumor on the internet saying that I did it to take back my identity, which is something I’ve never said in my entire life.
Wild. As a whole, We Live in Time has had social media users thirsting for the duo of Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield. The trailer showed us the beginning of Tobias and Almut’s love story who eventually become parents to a daughter. Yet, the romance movie gives us a hard dose of reality when Almut gets diagnosed with cancer and has to start treatment. In real life, the storyline hit Andrew Garfield very hard as his mother died of pancreatic cancer in 2019. But, the upcoming project ended up being therapeutic for The Amazing Spider-Man actor in exploring his grief with the hope that audiences will do the same thing.
A lot goes into making art, and I give Pugh a lot of praise for making the daring choice to stick to her guns and shave her head. And now we know that it really did have so much more purpose than just looking cool, though perhaps it will go down in history as one of Pugh's best fashion moments, as well.
