The actress opened up about what it was like to shoot the intense scene
Florence Pugh has opened up on the controversial orgy scene during the infamous 2019 film Midsommar.
Ari Aster’s folk horror film starred the likes of Pugh alongside Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, William Jackson Harper and Ellora Torchia (just to name a few) to tell the story of an American couple who get lured into a Swedish cult and their rituals.
The film seems normal up to a point, before things start to go haywire and don’t slow down at all until the very end.
It features several disturbing and graphic scenes – some of which you can see snippets of in the trailer above.
One of the most controversial scenes in the movie is one where Christian (played by male lead Raynor) is told to drink some hallucinogenic tea before being forced to try and get a 15-year-old member of the cult, Maja, pregnant, in front of the rest of the women in the cult, who are mimicking what she does while nude.
Though Maja is played by Isabelle Grill, who was in her early twenties at the time of filming, it doesn’t take away from how disturbing it is to watch, or even worse, to perform in front of a camera.
Speaking to Vulture, he said that it was ‘pretty hardcore’ to shoot, saying that a lot of it was cut out for censorship, while giving credit to the women in the scene as ‘everyone committed themselves’, as it took around 12 hours to film.
However, this scene was followed by another that was just as intense and disturbing (albeit in a different way) as Dani (Pugh) finds out that boyfriend Christian is cheating on her by being part of the ritualistic orgy.
Florence Pugh puts on an intense performance in Midsommar (A24)
After being taken back to her sleeping cabin by other young women in the village, they all breakdown together, crying and screaming collectively.
The Oscar-nominated actress reflected on the scene through a candid post on her Instagram, saying that she ‘found a true sisterhood’ with the actresses on set.
Alongside a behind-the-scenes photo of her and the other young women coming down from the terrifying scene, she wrote: “I remember the first take being so long, much longer than is displayed in the film that you all watched.\
“When Ari said cut, we all clung on to each other’s arms and dug our nails into each other’s palms and wept. Sobbed. Heaved. I remember it being really hard to stop.”
“Truly, these women made this scene possible. It was TERRIFYING. As terrifying as it was to watch, it was to read and know we had to do it.”
She went on: “I love these girls so much. I’m not a big crier, so going through that with them was true safely and love and respect. It only happened because I had them.”
Pugh opened up about the emotional scene from the horror film (Marleen Moise/Getty Images)
The 28-year-old reflected on the time before the scene, explaining that they ‘knew it would be hard’, adding that it would be ‘awkward’, ‘strange’ and ‘unnatural’.
“We knew it wouldn’t be pleasurable. But by the end we would roll in each other’s laps and cry and allow our bodies to keep heaving,” she admitted.
The Dune star went on to say that she waited ‘too long’ to share the moment with fans, and explained that she kept the photo as she knew that she probably wouldn’t see those women again.
“I may never work like this or see these women again…I may find these talented women on another film set, but as much as I wish that, that only rarely happens,” the actress wrote.
She stated: “But I knew I would never be so open and so raw and so exhausted like I was that day ever again.”
Revealing that they were shooting and therefore ‘screaming and wailing’ for two hours, she concluded by saying: “Scenes that make you hurt, or cringe, or turn away from the screen when watching are scenes designed to make you feel, for ten seconds at least, the most human. But for us, it was hours. Beautiful, hard, proud hours.”
