Her comments to Vogue in 2023 offered perhaps one of the clearest explanations of her attitude.
“We are human, we are bodies,” she said.
The statement sounds simple, but it challenges a contradiction built into celebrity culture.
Actors are human beings whose jobs often require them to look extraordinary.
They walk red carpets wearing designer clothing.
They are photographed professionally.
They work with makeup artists, hairstylists and fashion teams.
Their images appear on enormous screens, advertisements and magazine covers.
Yet those polished images can create the illusion that performers naturally look that way every moment of their lives.
Pugh has deliberately resisted that illusion.
She told Vogue that she can wear makeup and look glamorous for a premiere, but she is still an ordinary human being afterward.
She sweats after working out.
She gets spots when she is stressed.
Her body behaves like a body.
For Pugh, acknowledging those realities does not undermine glamour.
It simply prevents glamour from becoming the only acceptable version of herself.
That philosophy can also be seen in her social-media presence, where she has sometimes shared less polished moments alongside red-carpet photographs.
TIME observed something similar in its 2023 profile of the actress.
Pugh explained that she did not want to present only one carefully controlled version of herself because doing so would create an impossible standard to maintain.
Her solution was not to hide every imperfect moment.
It was to accept that those moments were also part of her.
A Return to Hollywood on Very Different Terms
There is an interesting symmetry in what happened after Pugh's early experience in Los Angeles.
TIME reported that after producers had tried to change her body, Pugh did not want to return to Hollywood until she had a clearer understanding of what she wanted to represent.
When she eventually did return for another American production, the character could hardly have been more different from the image she had previously been encouraged to pursue.
She starred in Fighting with My Family as professional wrestler Saraya “Paige” Bevis.
The role required physical strength.
Pugh described returning as a character with muscles and “big thighs”—a striking contrast to the earlier experience in which she had been told she needed to lose weight.
This time, physicality was connected to the character's life and profession.
The contrast helped reinforce Pugh's belief that bodies on screen should serve stories rather than arbitrary ideals.
She was not refusing physical preparation.
She was refusing the assumption that preparation always meant becoming thinner.
Food Was Never the Enemy
Pugh's public relationship with food also makes her position unusual within celebrity culture.
She loves cooking.
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, her informal “Cooking With Flo” videos became popular with followers. She cooked meals, experimented in the kitchen and spoke enthusiastically about food.
Her interest was not manufactured for a promotional campaign.
Food appears repeatedly in interviews with her.
In a 2020 video for Vogue, Pugh enthusiastically worked her way through an assortment of British dishes, including a full English breakfast, Scotch eggs, Cornish pasties and Victoria sponge.
She talked about growing up in a family where food mattered and described her father as “the king of the kitchen.”
That enthusiasm is relevant because discussions about actresses' bodies have historically been connected with discussions about eating.
Pugh's public attitude rejects the idea that food should automatically be treated as an enemy of professional success.
She enjoys it.
She cooks it.
She talks about it.
And when physical changes are required for a character, she wants those choices to emerge from the character rather than a generalized instruction to become smaller.
When Her Body Became a Public Debate
Pugh's refusal to treat her body as something that needed constant correction became even more visible in 2022.
That year, she wore a sheer pink Valentino dress to the fashion house's show in Rome.
The outfit generated enormous attention online.
Some responses were complimentary.
Others focused aggressively on Pugh's body.
She later addressed the criticism publicly.
In her subsequent Vogue interview, she described some of the comments as abusive and disturbing.
But instead of retreating from the discussion, Pugh questioned why the sight of a woman's body could provoke such anger.
Her response was consistent with the lesson she had learned at 19.
Other people would always have opinions about how she looked.
She did not have to organize her life around satisfying those opinions.
Years later, British Vogue returned to the subject of Pugh's relationship with her body.
In a 2024 interview, she emphasized her commitment to portraying bodies and emotions in ways that feel human rather than artificially perfected.
She spoke about the importance of showing an “ugly cry,” a face that does not settle perfectly and a stomach that is not constantly held in.
For an actor, those details can matter.
People do not experience grief while worrying whether every facial angle is flattering.
They do not experience fear while posing their bodies for photographs.
If cinema is meant to depict recognizable human experiences, Pugh's argument suggests, then bodies should sometimes be allowed to behave naturally.
Not a Rejection of Fitness
None of this means Pugh rejects exercise or physical transformation.
That would oversimplify her position.
She has trained extensively for physically demanding roles.
Her point is about ownership.
An actor preparing to portray an athlete, soldier or superhero may reasonably train to develop abilities associated with that character.
But Pugh has pushed back against the assumption that an actress should automatically become thinner simply because she is going to appear on camera.
The distinction is between function and conformity.
Training can help build a character.
Pressure to satisfy a generic beauty standard is something different.
That difference has allowed Pugh to maintain a healthier sense of control over her professional life.
The Career That Followed
Perhaps the most striking part of Pugh's story is what happened after she decided not to become the version of herself those early Hollywood executives apparently wanted.
Her career did not disappear.