The fact that Florence Pugh, one of the most naturally talented actresses of her generation, felt like she was in the wrong room for the majority of her school years is subtly telling. It’s not exactly the wrong school. The wrong life, that’s all. Oxford provided the backdrop. But she didn’t get much more from the classrooms.
Pugh was born in Oxford, England, on January 3, 1996, into a creative family. Her mom was a dancer. Her dad was a restaurant owner. There were four kids in all, and according to most reports, the house exuded energy. Due to Pugh’s childhood diagnosis of tracheomalacia, a condition affecting the windpipe that resulted in frequent hospital stays and breathing difficulties, the family moved to Manilva, Spain, when Pugh was three years old. It was expected that Spain’s warmer climate would be beneficial. Yes, it did. As a side effect, it also gave her that unique voice, which is a little husky and a little older than it should be.
The family had moved back to Oxford by the time she was six. After starting her formal education, Pugh attended two private schools: Wychwood School and St. Edward’s School, also referred to as Teddy’s. By any objective standard, both are reputable and highly esteemed establishments. It appears that neither was especially appropriate for her. She has stated that she didn’t think she was cut out for school with the directness that would later define her public persona. The academic path seemed like it was meant for someone else. She wanted to perform, and it seemed that she had always wanted to.
Looking back, it’s difficult to ignore how early the evidence was. A young Pugh was cast as Mary in the school’s nativity play, according to Claire Hooper, her former teacher at Cokethorpe School. Everyone in the room seemed taken aback by what transpired next. The youngster gave a Yorkshire accent throughout the entire performance. No one had proposed it. It had not been coached. She just made the decision, somewhere in her tiny brain, that Mary of Nazareth should sound like she was from Yorkshire, and she fully committed to it. Afterwards, Hooper said that seeing her was “quite extraordinary for somebody of her age.” That’s a cautious way of saying that this wasn’t typical.
Pugh was cast in Carol Morley’s 2014 drama The Falling while she was still in sixth form at St. Edward’s, technically finishing her A-levels. She performed in opposition to Maisie Williams. She took two months off her A-level term to film it. It’s unclear if she gave that choice much thought. According to reports, she didn’t. Soon after, she left for Los Angeles, skipping college completely and going straight from Oxford’s idealistic skyscrapers into the sharp, unique chaos of the entertainment business.
Interestingly, she never specifically framed any of this as rebellion. There was no overt criticism of academia. It was easier than that: school just wasn’t structuring itself around her understanding of who she was. The establishments weren’t antagonistic. Simply put, they didn’t care what she most needed.
As it happens, she might have benefited most from that indifference. A particular type of talent develops its ability to withstand friction. Pugh didn’t have any formal training when she came to Hollywood, but she was self-reliant, stubborn in the best way, and confident in her own abilities. Five years after that sixth-form film set, Little Women was nominated for an Academy Award. The classrooms might have been mistaken about her from the beginning. The likelihood that she was correct about herself seems to be growing.
