Florence Pugh is sharing just how spiritual it was to shave her head for “We Live in Time.”
Pugh plays Almut, a woman whose love story with husband Tobias (Andrew Garfield) is interrupted after a troubling medical diagnosis. The decades-spanning A24 indie has already been billed as a “deeply affecting tear-jerker” by IndieWire critic David Ehrlich.
Yet for the Academy Award-nominated actress, the real emotion of the film stemmed from her lack of hair. Pugh told British Vogue that it was a “really bizarre” experience to go bald for the role.
“In many religions, hair is the most precious thing on the body – it’s where you store your memories and your dreams and your history. [Shaving] it was really bizarre,” Pugh said. “My head was so sensitive and so many people were trying to touch it and it was so alive. My body went into a bit of trauma from it. I was cold all the time.”
Pugh’s co-star Garfield actually shaved her head on-camera.
“It was a privilege to be given that job,” Garfield said. “What if I somehow destroyed the head of one of the best actors of her generation? It was terrifying, but ultimately it was a very beautiful, intimate scene to shoot and thank God she has such a nicely shaped melon.”
“I’m so glad I get to talk about it now,” Pugh said of shaving her head. “For any actor taking a role like this, it is completely important that you see her head and we see her shaving it – it was just always a no-brainer. You have the honor of doing something to yourself that is totally in support of the character.”
In fact, she wanted to go sans hair to emphasize the “pain” of her character’s diagnosis.
“I’ve never found it a challenge to be acting in pain. I sometimes prefer it,” Pugh said. “That’s always the most important thing, whatever I do. I feel like it’s my duty to play human and ugly, to translate what looks real and what feels painful – whether that’s an ugly cry or a face that doesn’t settle or a stomach that sits [isn’t held in] when you’re naked.”
As for the impact of hairlessness on her real life, Pugh pointed to her own process of regrowth in more ways than one.
“I was going through so many [aesthetic] iterations when I was also going through life decisions,” Pugh said. “I was like, ‘Cool, well I don’t look like me. I’m changed. I’m changing.’ Looking back on that summer, I was growing into a new thing.”
She added, “I’m an absolute work maniac, [but] I can see I’m exhausted. I suddenly woke up last year and I was like, ‘I hate how much of my life I’ve missed.’ Yes, I want to have a career forever, but that’s not going to happen if I work myself into the ground.”
