Lady Macbeth star Florence Pugh interview: 'Why shouldn’t incredible women be ruling the screen?'

The Independent spoke to the breakout star of one of the year’s most acclaimed dramas

‘Women are slowly taking over film and that's great,’ says Pugh (Getty)

Films such as Lady Macbeth don’t come around often. British director William Oldroyd’s assured debut feature follows a girl named Katherine who, after entering a loveless marriage to a bitter man twice her age, has her hunger for power sparked when she begins an affair with a worker on her husband's estate. It's a period drama set in 1865 and in many ways is incomparable to anything you'll have seen this year, heightened by British breakout star Florence Pugh, whose central performance is one that is likely to be the subject of acting workshops long in the future.

Pugh looks worlds away from her corset-wearing, wine-guzzling character when we meet on an unusually wintry April afternoon. Her day is dedicated to the discussion of the film (Woman's Hour this morning, Mark Kermode later) and Pugh appears subdued that the experience is rolling on a year and a half after it was shot. The feature – loosely based on not Shakespeare but Nikolai Leskov's 19th-century novella Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk – displays a refreshing willingness to meld rebelliousness with a genre usually known for the austere. Downton Abbey this is not.

“When we watch period dramas, we kind of expect what's going to happen to the women," Pugh muses. "They either kill themselves or they live this incredibly boring and horrendous life. We're not used to seeing a woman kick back in the way Katherine does, and if we ever do, it's the man being cheeky or naughty. Or realising he likes sex.

“This is why it's so shocking – because we're seeing a very modern story in a very period film.”

Getting Pugh to speak candidly about the character is tough. As Lady Macbeth draws on, Katharine begins to display manic tendencies to commit, shall we say, unethical acts. Is she a victim of a repressed society? Or perhaps she's pure and simply a villainess? Pugh laughs.

“I don’t think I'm the best person to ask this because I love Katherine. She is just a girl and she’s put in these situations where she has to react. At no point did I think I had to put on the bad-man cape – she’s just acting with instincts. She’s pushed and so she pushes back.”

Staggeringly, the role landed at Pugh's feet at the age of 19 – something that still surprises her to this day.

Florence Pugh puts in a brilliant central performance in ‘Lady Macbeth’

“It is very rare to find a character like this and it is never ever handed to someone who is essentially unknown and 19,” she tells me humbly, revealing that, between this and her role in Carol Morley's acclaimed mystery drama The Falling (2014), her desire to play alluring roles has been piqued drastically.

“I now have such high expectations with characters that I'm reading for, because why not? Why shouldn't there be these incredible women ruling the screens? And yes, as a result, me and my team are quite picky now.” She pauses. “But good picky.”

Something Pugh is happy to speak about without prompting is the treatment of women in Hollywood, a subject plagued with all kinds of unsettling stats (earlier this year, it was reported that women comprised just 9 per cent of directors of the top 250 highest-grossing films of 2016). There is a fightback, however, with Jessica Chastain last week stating she will actively turn down roles if she discovers she is getting paid less than her male co-star. If you ask Pugh, she believes a resolution is “slowly getting there”.

“[Women] are slowly taking over and that's great. I remember how when I did the press tour for The Falling, Carol would say the stats of how many women there were in film and it was so upsetting because you do look on set and see very little women present – when I'm sitting in a scene, it does take a second for me to realise that the only women in the room are the ones in the scene. The crew is mainly always men. It's so bizarre.

She continues: “The men are perfectly lovely but you go 'surely you're not the only ones who could be doing his job?' So it's great when you do a film like The Falling or Lady Macbeth that takes into account that you can open the job up to people that are totally as impressive – and they’re women! ”

One woman in the industry Pugh holds in extremely strong stead is casting director Shaheen Baig, who cast her in her highest-profile role to date, the forthcoming comedy-drama Fighting with My Family, a film from Stephen Merchant based on the life of WWE wrestler Paige. Pugh impressively stars in the lead role opposite Lena Headey (Game of Thrones' very own Lady Macbeth, Cersei Lannister), Nick Frost and Dwayne Johnson – who produced the project – and found herself learning to wrestle from scratch.

She was initially uncertain whether she was the right person for the job – a thought, she tells me, that usually plagues her before shooting begins. “I always hate it when I see the wrong person in massive roles so for me, my biggest fear would be accepting a role I thought I wouldn’t find the rhythm of."

Pugh reflects upon the experience with immense positivity. “I got a really good insight into the world of wrestling. I really take my hat off to anybody that steps in the ring because it's so hard – you’re competing against your friends and you’re working in front of an audience which tells you exactly what they're thinking. Which is different for me, obviously.”

The experience also gifted the star with one hell of an anecdote, which in wrestling talk, basically serves as a smackdown.

“I wrestled at the STAPLES Centre at Monday Night Raw when I was 21 years old,” she says through a grin. “I will never be able to say that ever again.”

It seems Pugh's career is truly on the ascent bolstered by a heap of rising star awards she's received over the past few years (Screen International, London Evening Standard). Pugh remains down to earth, attributing her success to a humble case of “right place right time”.

“The Falling was completely [that] and I still see it as a fluke. I happened to be around at that time to send a tape that Carol happened to see. I think it's all accidental and it's up to you to decide what ones you don't want to be accidental.

"With Lady Macbeth, I had two other things offered to me and they would have also been very fun but you just have to figure that out. And then you do it."

Whatever she chooses, there is no doubt the world will be watching with zest.

Lady Macbeth is in cinemas from 28 April. Fighting with My Family will be released in 2018