Florence Pugh Talks Wrestling Saoirse Ronan & Meeting Meryl Streep

Florence Pugh strikes a stunning pose in her new cover shoot for ES Magazine, available now!

Here’s what the 23-year-old Little Women actress had to share with the mag:

On the first time she met Meryl Streep on the set of Little Women: “She was already on set, kind of in character, and I came running down the stairs and I was like, ‘MERYL!’ [Florence throws back her head and shoots out her arms, almost sending freshly squeezed orange juice and steaming black coffee flying off the table.] And I flung my arms around her.”

On wrestling on set with Saoirse Ronan: “Every single scene that Saoirse and I would wrestle in — that was our suggestion. Sometimes she’d be like, ‘God I really want to hit you.’ And I’d be like, ‘Me too.’ And then we’d have a little wrestle and a hug. That was genuine. Every time Saoirse was punching me in the face, it was like, ‘HA! This feels just like family.’”

On feeling eager to please at the beginning of her career: “When you go out there [LA] as a baby-face, fresh thing who is eager to please, they will make you into whatever they need to make you sell, essentially. You need to know exactly what you are representing when you go into meetings so if someone says, ‘That’s really cool you don’t pluck your eyebrows,’ that you don’t f–king, like, die and whimper. No I don’t want you to cut my hair. No I don’t want you to wax my upper lip. I have a face and hair grows out of it. Please leave me alone.”

On whether she was nervous about playing Amy in the new iteration of Little Women: “Not with Amy. [She answers quickly, as if her character was actually one of her best mates.] She never weighed heavy on my shoulders and I genuinely enjoyed playing every second of her. So I’m never nervous talking about her.”

For more from Florence Pugh, see her full interview in this week’s issue of ES Magazine.

READ MORE: Florence Pugh Was Drawn To Amy in ‘Little Women’ Thanks To Her Grandmother