Florence Pugh has opened up about her ‘scary and intense’ health issues as she detailed her ‘traumatic’ childhood in a new interview on Monday.
The actress, 29, spent a good deal of her childhood in and out of hospital as she was diagnosed with tracheomalacia as a toddler.
Florence revealed that from the moment she was born there was ‘something wrong’ with her and no one really knew what was wrong other than she couldn’t breath.
The Little Women star said she has slowly ‘got better’ as an adult but when she now gets ill it can be ‘quite scary’ as she still has a ‘disability in her throat’.
Speaking on Louis Theroux’s podcast, she said: ‘I have a breathing issue which has got better as I got older.
‘When I was born my breathing tubes were really floppy, I have Tracheomalacia and when I came out the scan was like something flat on my chest.
Florence Pugh has opened up about her ‘scary and intense’ health issues as she detailed her ‘traumatic’ childhood in a new interview on Monday
The actress, 29, spent a good deal of her childhood in and out of hospital as she was diagnosed with tracheomalacia as a toddler; Florence pictured as a child
‘From the get go there was something wrong and I sounded like a goose. My laugh is kind of how I use to sound.
‘I then had many years ups and downs which was traumatic for my mum and dad.’
She continued: ‘No one really knew what I had they just knew I couldn’t breath and it affects your immune system. It’s just a disability in my throat.
‘I don’t get as ill as I use to, but when I do get ill as an adult it does get quite scary, it is pretty intense.
‘I usually get ill after working for a long period time, like being on press tours or shooting a long movie and then my body stops and someone has a cold and I get it and it quickly becomes a chest infection, it has to be stopped quickly.’
Florence, who is from Oxfordshire and has three siblings, explained how her breathing became so bad as a child her family moved to Spain for the better weather.
She said: ‘When I was younger it would be scary because I would be in and out of hospital and I would get pneumonia.
‘My mum doesn’t really like talking about it, it was a very scary time. I remember my body hurting and being in and out of hospital for years.
She said: ‘I had many years ups and downs which was traumatic for my mum and dad. No one really knew what I had, I just couldn’t breath and it affects your immune system. It’s a disability in my throat’
Florence, who is from Oxfordshire and has three siblings, explained how her breathing became so bad as a child her family moved to Spain for the better weather; pictured with dad Clinton and brother Toby
‘For years they didn’t know what it was and we moved to Spain for the weather’.
Tracheomalacia is a condition where the cartilage in the windpipe is soft, causing the airway to collapse during breathing, especially when exhaling or coughing, which can make breathing difficult.
Elsewhere in the interview, Florence slammed ‘completely inappropriate’ directors in sex scenes and has claimed intimacy coordinators can make things ‘weird and awkward’.
The star, who has portrayed several different sexual scenarios in her career so far, explained how there are pros and cons to having intimacy coordinators on set.
The Don’t Worry Darling actress said a good intimacy coordinated can help the stars ‘understand the dance of intimacy as opposed to just shooting a sex scene’.
Intimacy coordinators became a prominent part of film and television around 2018, following the #MeToo movement which raised awareness of actor safety and comfort on set.
However, before they were a thing, Florence revealed that despite ‘making sure she’s heard’ on set and being ‘confident’ she has found herself in tricky situations where directors have directed her inappropriately in sex scenes.
She said: ‘I did a lot of my sex scenes before that was even a job. I’m quite confident, I’m quite happy in my skin, I’ve always been able to make sure that I’m heard.
‘That being said, even though I know that I believe that, and even though I know that I felt that at the time, there are plenty of things that I remember where it was just completely inappropriate to have asked me to do that, to have directed me in that way.
‘But my view is changing about it as well, because I’m now having fantastic experiences with intimacy coordinators.’
‘I don’t get as ill as I use to, but when I do get ill as an adult it does get quite scary, it is pretty intense. I usually get ill after working for a long period time’, she said; pictured in Thunderbolts
Despite now working well with intimacy coordinators, Florence opened up about working with a ‘s***’ one who ‘wasn’t helpful’ and made everything ‘awkward’.
She continued: ‘However, that being said, I’ve also had a s*** example where someone just made it so weird and so awkward and really wasn’t helpful and kind of was just like wanting to be a part of the set in a way that wasn’t helpful, and I think it’s a job that’s still figuring itself out.
‘I will say that I’ve been able to understand better meaning through working with great ones in sex scenes, finding the story of what it is, what kind of sex is it, how do you touch each other, how long have you been having sex for? This all matters and I had never thought of it before as it is so awkward.
‘Everybody’s just kind of working away to chip away at the scene. And I think when I worked with a fantastic coordinator, I was like, oh this is what I’ve been missing, understanding the dance of intimacy as opposed to just shooting a sex scene.
‘There are good ones and bad ones, and it’s through the good ones that I have learned how effective it can really be.’
