Florence Pugh was born on January 3, 1996, in Oxford, England, to Clinton Pugh, a restaurateur, and Deborah Mackin, a dance teacher. She is one of four siblings, including actor Toby Sebastian. Pugh was educated at Wychwood School and St Edward’s School, Oxford, but left at age 16 to pursue acting. She briefly studied at the independent arts school Arts Educational School.
Pugh began her acting career in 2014 with the drama film The Falling. She gained recognition for her leading role in the independent drama Lady Macbeth (2016), for which she won a British Independent Film Award for Best Actress.
Her breakthrough came in 2018 with roles in the miniseries King Lear and the films Outlaw King and Malevolent. In 2019, Pugh starred in the wrestling biopic Fighting with My Family, the horror film Midsommar, and Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the latter. She received a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination in 2018 and won it in 2020.
Pugh has consistently delivered critically acclaimed performances in a variety of genres. She joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2021, playing Yelena Belova in Black Widow, a role she reprised in the Disney+ series Hawkeye and will again in the upcoming film Thunderbolts. Her film credits include leading roles in Don’t Worry Darling (2022) and A Good Person (2023), which she also co-wrote. She voiced Goldilocks in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) and played Princess Irulan in Dune: Part Two (2024).