Florence Pugh was told the MCU would ruin her reputation as the new darling of independent cinema

There’s definitely a difference between being an Actor with a capital “A” and being a movie star, but there’s no reason why you can’t do both, something the unstoppably rising star that is Florence Pugh has been experiencing firsthand.

The Academy Award nominee is only 27 years old, but has already carved out a reputation as one of her generation’s finest talents with a string of knockout performances under her belt. Ticking off the multi-billion dollar franchise box, too, Pugh became an instant fan favorite when she debuted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Black Widow as Yelena Belova.

Her guest appearance in Hawkeye endeared her even further to the MCU fandom, and her star has rocketed to such a stratospheric level that she’s expected to be the highest-paid cast member, first-billed name in the cast, and star attraction of the upcoming antihero ensemble effort Thunderbolts.

And yet, Pugh revealed to Total Film that she was told her adventures in the weird and wacky world of superhero cinema would end up hindering her burgeoning reputation as one of independent cinema’s hottest young things, an accusation she didn’t believe for a second.

“When I first signed onto Marvel, lots of people from the indie-film world were all telling me that I was never going to go back to small movies again, and it always kind of wound me up. Because I think there’s beauty in all types of those films. There’s beauty in the massive, epic storylines like Dune, like Marvel, like even Oppenheimer that I did. They’re amazing, mega movies. And then there’s also beauty in all these little ones that not everyone is going to see, but are going to affect the right person at the right time. I’ve never, ever only thought that I was going to just do one type of movie. I’ve always known that I want to dabble in all areas.”

The evidence goes to show that Pugh will continue to thrive in both the big budget arena and the world of smaller-scale arthouse cinema, and it’s not as if anyone’s forced to choose between the two unless they really, really, want to.