Florence Pugh is speaking out about her minimal role in Christopher Nolan’s global success, Oppenheimer.
For those who haven’t seen it, Florence, 27, portrays Jean Tatlock in the hit film, a Communist Party member and psychiatrist who engages in a sexual relationship with the titular J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) before and during his marriage to Kitty (Emily Blunt)
The explicit scenes between Florence’s and Cillian’s characters are what landed the film its R rating, for “infrequent nudity and sexual content.” In one sequence, Jean holds a sacred text of Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, in front of her bare chest while asking Oppenheimer to read aloud from it.
Aside from the sex scenes, Florence hardly has any screentime in the film before her eventual suicide — something that, along with the use of the sacred text, upset some viewers.
Several fans suggested that Florence’s scenes were “gratuitous” and “unnecessary,” arguing that they contributed minimally to the plot — especially given her lack of screentime elsewhere in the film.
Now Florence has acknowledged her minimal role and revealed that Christopher, the film’s director, actually apologized to her over the entire thing.
Sitting down with MTV UK recently, Florence began by explaining that she “didn’t really know what was going on” when she was first made aware of her Oppenheimer role.
“I didn’t really know what was going on or what it was that was being made,” she said. “Except I knew that Chris really, really wanted me to know that it wasn’t a very big role and he understands if I don’t want to come near it.”
“I was like, ‘Doesn’t matter. Even if I’m a coffee maker at a café in the back of the room, let’s do it,’” she shared./div>
Florence went on: “I remember he apologized by the size of the role. I was like, ‘Please don’t apologize.’ And then he said, ‘We’ll send you the script, and honestly, you just read it and decide if it’s like… I completely understand the sizing thing.’”
But as soon as she saw the script, Florence noted that she was immediately on board with the project regardless of the minimal screentime.
“And I remember that evening when I got the script being like, ‘I don’t need to… I know I’m going to do it,’” she said.
Florence’s comments come shortly after her costar Cillian defended the inclusion of her character’s sex scenes against the fierce criticism.
During a chat with the Sydney Morning Herald last month, Cillian revealed that those scenes were “written deliberately” by Christopher, and argued that they were “not gratuitous” at all, as many viewers had argued.
[Christopher] knew that those scenes would get the movie the rating that it got,” Cillian said. “And I think when you see it, it’s so fucking powerful. And they’re not gratuitous. They’re perfect. And Florence is just amazing.”
Going on to acknowledge Florence’s minimal presence in the film, Cillian added, “The impact she has [in Oppenheimer] for the size of the role, it’s quite devastating.”
