Florence Pugh’s performance as Dani in Ari Aster’s 2019 folk horror masterpiece, Midsommar, cemented her status as one of her generation’s most fearless actors, but the depth of her raw, emotional portrayal came at a staggering personal cost. In a recent interview, Pugh revealed the experience was so psychologically taxing that it plunged her into a prolonged state of depression lasting nearly six months after filming wrapped. She attributes this breakdown to a form of “self-abuse,” admitting that she intentionally manipulated her own emotions to achieve the raw, visceral grief required by the role, a method she now vows never to repeat. This candid reflection pulls back the curtain on the intense, often unhealthy, emotional labor demanded by prestige acting and opens a vital conversation about protecting mental health in the pursuit of cinematic brilliance.
The Hellish Immersion of Playing Dani
Pugh’s performance in Midsommar required her to inhabit a character, Dani, who is in a state of continuous, escalating psychological trauma. The film opens with Dani suffering the unimaginable loss of her sister and parents in a horrific murder-suicide, setting her on a descent that is only compounded by a toxic relationship and the nightmarish rituals of the Hårga commune. Pugh confessed that this level of unrelenting grief and mental anguish was unlike anything she had ever been asked to portray on screen.
To tap into Dani’s specific, guttural sorrow, Pugh felt compelled to employ extreme techniques. She revealed that, to achieve the necessary, pained sound and appearance, she forced herself to visualize increasingly horrific scenarios. This process started with imagining the news of a sibling’s death, escalating to visualizing coffins, and culminating in vividly imagining attending her entire family’s funeral. This intense, self-imposed psychological immersion was necessary for the role, yet ultimately “really f—ked me up,” as she bluntly put it.
Pugh’s account serves as a profound illustration of the often-invisible burden of method-adjacent acting. It wasn’t the hours or the physical conditions of filming in a remote European field, but the constant act of self-manipulation—the tricking of her own brain into believing the worst possible reality—that did the damage. She detailed feeling immense guilt afterward, like she had “left Dani in that field” to suffer, a classic sign of the brain struggling to separate the character’s trauma from the actor’s reality.
The Six-Month Psychological Hangover
The most startling revelation was the longevity of the emotional impact. Pugh immediately transitioned from the dark, cold filming of Midsommar to the warm, supportive environment of Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women. She explained that the drastically different tone of the subsequent project allowed her to temporarily compartmentalize and “shelve” the immense pain she had channeled for Dani.
However, the darkness surfaced when the work stopped. When Pugh returned home for Christmas after wrapping Little Women, she realized she was profoundly depressed and couldn’t understand why. She concluded that the six months of sadness, which she hadn’t actively processed, was the delayed result of the emotional trauma inflicted during the Midsommar shoot. This delayed reaction highlights the insidious nature of emotional exhaustion, where the body and mind only begin to process the damage once the high-demand environment of production ends.
This episode provided a crucial moment of clarity for the actress. She acknowledged that her brain was essentially feeling sympathy for itself because she had abused and manipulated her own emotions for the sake of a performance. This realization became a firm boundary for her career moving forward: she cannot “exhaust myself like that” again, recognizing the destructive “knock-on effect” it has on her overall well-being.
Setting Boundaries: A New Philosophy for Acting
Pugh’s candid admission signals a growing conversation within Hollywood about the sustainability of intense dramatic work and the need for better mental health boundaries on set. Her statement is a rejection of the often-romanticized notion that great art must come from great, self-inflicted suffering—a philosophy that has historically led to the breakdown of many revered actors.
The actress is now committed to a new approach, prioritizing self-preservation and mental stability while still pursuing complex, challenging roles. This new philosophy aligns with the industry’s broader movement towards creating safer environments, often championed by the increased presence of professionals like intimacy coordinators and mental health consultants on major productions. For Pugh, this means finding a way to access the deep, raw emotion required for a role without resorting to emotional self-harm.
It is a difficult balance to strike, as the very quality that made her Midsommar performance so universally acclaimed—its palpable, realistic agony—is a direct result of the intensity she has now sworn off. However, her stance asserts that an actor’s emotional health is not a disposable resource for the sake of a film, establishing a significant benchmark for how dedicated actors should—and should not—approach their craft.
The Horror Genre’s Psychological Weight
Midsommar‘s unique brand of folk horror, which focuses less on jump scares and more on psychological disintegration, inherently demands a heavier toll on its lead performers. Director Ari Aster specialized in exploring familial grief and trauma in his films, pushing his actors to extreme limits. While Pugh specifically absolves Aster or the production team of responsibility, emphasizing the abuse was self-inflicted, the film’s script required a depth of anguish that few roles ever demand.
The film’s final act, where Dani experiences a full emotional and psychological rebirth by fully embracing the cult’s shared grief, required a sustained state of hysteria. The unforgettable scene where the communal women weep and scream alongside Dani in a primal ritual is often cited by critics as a moment of pure, raw cinematic power. Pugh’s ability to transition from a broken victim to a powerful, albeit twisted, participant is what made the performance iconic, yet it was precisely this sustained emotional commitment that left her psychologically drained.
Pugh’s story serves as a critical footnote to the success of the modern psychological horror genre, reminding audiences that the terrifying reality created on screen is often built on the genuine emotional exhaustion of the actors involved. It emphasizes that for actors who deeply commit to their roles, separating the character’s tragedy from their own mental space is not always a seamless process, underscoring the unseen price of delivering a career-defining performance.
