Over the last few days, Little Women has been a much bigger player than expected at the box office, which means quite a few people have already seen the new movie starring Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson and Eliza Scanlon. However, Florence Pugh revealed there’s a fun component to Little Women that audiences might be missing.
In a recent interview, the actress shared that director Greta Gerwig put a lot of work into bringing Little Women to life, to the point where there is stuff going on in shots that is worth noticing beyond the main action. According to Florence Pugh:
In the background of every single scene, there’s always something else going on. So you had to be completely switched on and ready and obviously the bigger the scene, the more characters, the more things were going on and it was so exhilarating.
This made the acting rather challenging in the movie, but it should be fun for eagle-eyed viewers who are paying attention to performances too. Although it’s worth pointing out there’s a lot going on in general in Little Women, as the ensemble cast tells the story of the March family and each of their little ambitions and narratives as the four young women grow into adulthood.
While Florence Pugh didn’t share with Deadline exactly what she was doing in the background as part of this narrative, I do remember a scene when Amy is fiddling around in the background while her sister Jo curls her other sister Meg’s hair, to much disaster. That scene is memorable in the book and feels really realistic on the big screen, particularly when Amy howls with laughter at her sister’s loss of hair.
Any way you put it, it’s nice to hear Florence Pugh found the set to be “so exhilarating.” While most in the movie have been well-liked, she’s certainly had a breakout moment in 2019 and in particular this movie, so it’s fitting she’s the one to sing its praises in regards to the challenge that was put forth to her while acting.
In general, it’s clear Little Women is rich with detail. It’s also doing a lot with story structure, as well, as scenes bounce around through the girls’ lives, both in late childhood and early adulthood. There’s a lot that’s already been written on the 2019 movie’s unconventional story structure, and if you haven’t given the film a watch yet, now’s your chance.
Of course, Little Women is also based on a popular work (or really works) of fiction and because of that some things were changed from the big to small screen. If you were looking for those changes – and not all this stuff Florence Pugh is alluding to happening in the background of scenes – you can take a look at our full roundup of differences between the book and the movie and see if there are any moments we missed.
