We’ve reached the end of another week. But before we clock out for the weekend, we’re giving credit where it’s due. Florence Pugh is the latest champion in our Winner of the Week series.
Marvel’s never not had a girl problem. While the one thing the DC Extended Universe got right was Wonder Woman (after Marvel and director Patty Jenkins parted ways over creative differences on Thor 2, which reportedly angered Natalie Portman so bad she dipped out of the franchise for a while), the MCU’s female heroes have been…hit or miss. Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow was popular enough that fans wanted a solo story, but the studio didn’t bother to make it until her character was already dead in the major timeline, then skipped the theatrical release, which Johansson sued them about. Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel was supposed to even the gender scales, but proved less a beloved character and more someone we watched because she was there. Everyone was into Elizabeth Olsen’s turn in WandaVision, though you’ll notice that half the title of that show is the name of the husband. You’ve got your Gamoras (Zoe Saldaña) and Okoyes (Danai Gurira) and other great female characters who are part of larger ensembles, but whenever a woman gets a property to herself…well, She Hulk. Yikes.
All of this is just to say, it’s no easy task to be The Main Girl on the poster for the next big MCU movie, but somehow, Florence Pugh (Johansson’s spiritual successor in the franchise and actual successor in the plot, having taken the baton in Black Widow) is turning her Thunderbolts press tour into a reason to get excited.
For starters, she knows exactly how the game is played. When the studio didn’t want her to jump off the world’s second-tallest building, she begged to be allowed to perform the stunt, telling MCU boss Kevin Feige not that it would be artistically or personally important, but, “it’s going to do wonders for the press tour.” We know from the Don’t Worry Darling fracas that Pugh is a savvy self-promoter, wordlessly sipping her way to icon status while everyone else involved got dinged. Honestly, distributors should hire her to craft their PR campaigns.
She’s also opened up about her decision to freeze her eggs after receiving a PCOS diagnosis and knowing that she wants a family, an important conversation that’s actually pretty relevant to the Black Widow arc, if you remember her backstory (she was forcibly sterilized by the assassin school). With her trademark candor, she revealed that the egg retrieval process has been “tiring and horrible,” but acknowledged her privilege to be able to afford the procedure, telling Harper’s Bazaar, “I know you shouldn’t read the comments but… urgh. I wish there was a little more tenderness and understanding.”
Read moreFlorence Pugh Has Another High-Fashion Take on Sheer Chiffon at Paris Fashion Week
This whole look is doing the most with the least.
Of course, this kind of intelligence and honesty is what we’ve come to expect from Pugh. She’ll call out unrealistic body standards and free the nipple and still make it home in time for tea.
At every turn, Pugh manages to come across as both normal and empowered without ever crossing into faux-relatability or meaningless girlbossisms. This is a woman who hosted an Instagram cooking show that somehow wasn’t cringe, amicably ended her age-gap relationship and now keeps her romantic life to herself, proudly embraces the fashion community without reducing herself to a walking billboard and, oh yeah, emails Kevin Feige to tell him how to promote movies. She’s no longer a rising star, solidly a star-star, and managed to make the leap without losing what made us love her in the first place.
But just because we’re used to her being rad doesn’t mean we take it for granted. Making sure the Dune and We Live In Time star stays A-list might just be enough to make us buy Thunderbolts tickets.
The post Florence Pugh Is Reclaiming the Marvel Universe for the Ladies appeared first on Glamour.
