Florence Pugh has revealed she persuaded actor and directorZach Braff to let her chop off her real hair for a dramatic scene in upcoming film A Good Person.
The British actress, 27, plays Allison in the new movie — a woman whose life falls apart following a tragic accident.
Discussing the scene on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, Oscar-nominated Pugh described how she convinced Braff to agree to her cut her own hair.
She said: “It was my idea. I said, ‘Zach, I think I should chop my hair off at the beginning of the movie.’ And he was like, ‘Cool, that’s not going to work.’ It was like, ‘How do we do this shooting in order?’ And I was like, ‘You’ll figure it out.’”
.@Florence_Pugh shares that fans can expect her own original music in #AGoodPerson! #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/ZdrQFi9OLn
— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) March 21, 2023
She added: “He came and spoke to me, very tentatively. And was like, ‘Florence, we can’t do this, we need to use a wig.’ And I was like, ‘You’ll figure it out.’ And they figured it out! I did it.”
Pugh, who was nominated for an Academy Award for playing Amy in 2019’s Little Women, dated Braff between 2019 and 2022, meaning the pair were a couple while the movie was filming.
Pugh spoke about Braff writing the script for her.
She said: “He wrote it for me. I was his muse. There’s so much ease with reading a script when someone knows how you talk, and how far they can push you, and what you’re capable of doing.”
Pugh also spoke about singing one of her own songs in the movie.
“It’s the first time I have actually ever written a song for a character and performed a song as the character as well,” she said.
“But then, outside the movie, I got to record them as how I would like them, as me, as like the creator. So, when the movie comes out my songs are going to be on the soundtrack as well.”
A Good Person also stars Molly Shannon and Morgan Freeman.
A star-studded screening of the movie took place on Monday night in New York, with Pugh taking her family along with her to the event.
Her mother Deborah Mackin and father Clinton Pugh, plus her grandmother Pat, were all in attendance at the Metrograph in Manhattan — as was co-star Zoe Lister-Jones.