It’s exciting to portray a couple’s sex life but I had to film one ‘sweaty’ scene EIGHT times, says Florence Pugh

SHE is setting pulses racing with her raunchiest movie yet – and now Florence Pugh has described how she used sex to portray the different stages of her character’s relationship.

The Oxford-born beauty was guided by an expert intimacy co-ordinator to create such intense on-screen chemistry that she and Andrew Garfield end up “eating each other” in new film We Live In Time.

And Florence, who turned 29 on Friday, says it was “really exciting” to tear off her hunky co-star’s clothes to illustrate their love.

She said: “I have always wanted to do a love story.

“You actually get to understand the relationship, and what point they’re at in the relationship, through the style of sex they have.

“And that was purely because of our intimacy co-ordinator bringing that up in conversation and saying, ‘OK, but if you haven’t had sex before, you’re going to be fumbling.’

“‘And then, of course, in a different sex scene later when you’re trying to get pregnant and you’ve been given the green light, you’re going to just be eating each other’.”

Florence, who is known for her vocal views on the way women’s ­bodies are portrayed in Hollywood, added: “It was really wonderful to actually slow down and make the beats and the intimacy within the sex actually matter more, every touch matter more.

“The way that you look at each other in specific ways and watch the story and ­meaning through the history of touch between two people was really, really exciting for me.”

‘A bit too yappy’

Florence said she and 41-year- old Andrew wanted the relationship scenes to be convincing, and added: “So many of our memories of the way that we connected and how we built this chemistry was through the total enjoyment of falling deeper and deeper into it every day.”

She added: “This movie really makes me want to go out and fall in love and have a child, and it makes me want to live.”

Off screen, Florence dated co-star Zach Braff from 2019 to 2022, and her current boyfriend is Peaky Blinders actor Finn Cole.

Confirming in September that she was dating someone, she said: “Something that I resonate with is that I believe that if magic is real, then it’s falling in love.

“We are figuring out what we actually are. And I think for the first time I’m now not allowing myself to go on a rollercoaster.

“I’m allowing myself to take time to let something evolve and let it be completely real to its core, as opposed to racing into that.

“Falling is the most amazing feeling but unfortunately if that’s the only thing that you know in a relationship, then that’s the thing that you chase.”

Two years ago the actress was caught up in a media whirlwind of ­speculation when she played pop star Harry Styles’ on-screen wife in ­psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde.

I am too gobby and argumentative. But I have to say how I feel, especially when I am being attacked. If people don’t want me this way, they will be severely ­disappointed.

Florence Pugh

There was talk of a feud between Florence and Olivia, and according to an unnamed source on the movie, the pair came to blows over Olivia’s “frequent, unexplained absences,” on set which resulted in a ‘screaming match’ between the women.

“Olivia and Harry would just disappear,” an insider told Vulture magazine.

Florence already has an Oscar nomination under her belt for Little Women in 2020, and she won a legion of new fans when she joined the Marvel franchise, playing Yelena Belova in Black Widow in 2021.

She acknowledges she could never be a conventional Hollywood star, while ­frequently lashing out at trolls who criticise her body shape and fashion choices.

She also challenges the way women are expected to ­conform in the showbusiness world.

She said: “I am a bit too gobby and argumentative, a bit too yappy.

“But I wouldn’t be able to not say how I feel, especially when it is me being attacked. If people don’t want me to be this way, they are going to be severely ­disappointed.”

Florence has also said she finds traditional ideas of beauty frustrating.

When she was judged harshly for wearing a see-through hot pink Valentino dress in 2022, she hit back at the slew of vulgar comments, questioning how her nipples could possibly offend ­people.

She posted on Instagram: “So many of you wanted to aggressively let me know how disappointed you were by my ‘tiny t*ts’. Grow up. Respect bodies. Respect all women.”

Despite years of intense scrutiny, the star is proud of her curves and says her weight has always ­fluctuated naturally.

She has said: “I’m someone that has never been the same size in my entire life. I’ve always gone up and down and up and down.

“I have a curvy body and my mum has a curvy body and my sisters have curvy bodies and that’s just the way we are. Not everybody has legs that go on for days.

“I’ve loved challenging ideas that I don’t like. I’m really interested in people who are still angry with me for not losing more weight, or who just hate my nose ring.

“I am not going to be able to just change the way things are, but I can certainly help young women coming into this industry by making conversations happen where they weren’t before.”

In We Live In Time, which is out now, Florence plays Almut, who starts a family with Tobias, played by Andrew, and then ­discovers she has cancer, and only six months left to live.

She said of the role: “It instantly makes you think, What would you do in that time if you had six f***ing fantastic months instead of 12 really, really passive, s**tty ones.

‘Baby-making machines’

“If something can make you feel like you’ve been kicked up the a**e to actually do the things that you should have done a year ago or say, ‘I love you’ 100 times to the person that you know you should have said I love you 100 times to, then ­fan-bloody-tastic.”

Florence is close to her family — siblings Arabella, Rafaela and ­musician Toby, and her parents, ­restaurateur Clinton Pugh and dancer Deborah Mackin.

Recently she had her eggs frozen after a diagnosis of endometriosis and ­polycystic ovary syndrome, which can cause infertility.

She said: “It was just so bizarre because my ­family are baby-making machines — my mum had babies into her forties.

“You realise you have to change your lifestyle, you have to be pro- active and think ahead.”

For the new film Florence revealed she had to shoot an “exhausting and sweaty” 15-minute birthing scene eight times.

She said: “It was insane, and it was amazing. The only problem was I didn’t have a baby that came out.

“So I was just so exhausted and sweaty and tired and I’d got no endorphins or anything. We worked with a midwife.

“Tiring, amazing, exhausting, so beautiful to watch, because it is just all about life.

“And it was like Andrew and I were preparing for a baby, and it was really, really beautiful. It was so emotional, it was like we had a child.

“We’d had eight of them, and seven of them were ­dollies, and one of them was real.

“I was so excited to play a young woman in this current world dealing with things that we all have to deal with — the conversation of children is always going to be alongside that.

“For me, it was just like all the things that my character was ­dealing with were so part of my life, so part of the conversations that I was having with friends, conversations I was having with siblings.

“I was so excited to play someone I would be able to see myself in, and be able to recognise that love.

“And I also know that if we did it right, it would be something that would hopefully wake people up.

“That’s exactly what’s happened. Everybody wants to talk about their shared experiences.”