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Speaking in a new interview on The Louis Theroux Podcast, Pugh made a point to pick out the one movie in her career so far that she actually wishes that she’d never done. The conversation shifted toward the movie by surprise when Theroux brought up the 2018 horror film Malevolent, noting that he had seen the film starring Pugh previously, not as research for their interview but simply as a film fan. Theroux went on to note that he believes she’s quite good in the film, prompting Pugh to make her confession.
Florence Pugh Blasts 2018 Horror Movie as One Film She Wishes She Never Did
Released in 2018, Pugh stars in the film as Angela Sayers, part of a brother-sister duo that fake paranormal encounters, only to get more than they bargained for after they venture to an isolated house for an “investigation.” Despite Pugh’s clear negative feelings about the film, it wasn’t exactly a disaster. The film premiered on Netflix and on Rotten Tomatoes has a 55% score, which, while “rotten,” could certainly be worse.
“I didn’t watch it,” Pugh said of Malevolent. “It’s probably the one movie that I wish I never did…I think everybody has one of those movies….I think it was just a movie that I did when I was younger, and I needed money, and I was like, ‘Well, obviously this is great.’ And then I got there and it wasn’t great.”
Theroux went on to explain the plot of the film to the listeners, only for Pugh to interrupt with a laugh, adding: “We can talk about other movies.”
The reveal that Malevolent is one of her biggest acting regrets, though, did lead Pugh to open up about her process now for picking scripts that she wants to participate in. The Oscar-nominee revealed that she doesn’t explicitly look for something scary in scripts, but something within them that actually scares her as a performer.
“In every script that I read, there has to be, and I know this now, there has to be a moment in the script where I’m not scared of the horror, but where I’m scared of if I’ll be able to do it,” Pugh revealed. “So that’s the thing that makes me lurch forward. If it’s something that I’ve never done before, never been shot before, or if I don’t know if I can take myself there, the moment I get like pangs of nerves, I know that I’m probably going to end up doing it.”
She continued, “Could be anything, like with Thunderbolts. I jumped off the second-tallest building in the world, and we were going to do it anyway. But yes, that was amazing to be able to do that. I’ve never done anything like that before, and I had to act at the same time, so it was like, well, that’s a huge test.”
Florence Pugh can next be seen in Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three, both arriving in 2026.
