Florence Pugh explains how East of Eden with Zoe Kazan built confidence

When Zoé Kazan begins to adapt East of Eden In what would become Netflix’s seven-episode limited series, she had only one actress in mind for the central role of Cathy Ames: Florence Pugh.

“I didn’t have a backup,” Kazan previously told Netflix. “I didn’t have anyone else that I thought was as good. She’s exactly the right person to play Cathy.”

In explaining what stands out about Pugh, Kazan said the actress embodied the way John Steinbeck portrayed the character in the novel.

“The way Cathy Ames is described in the book is a bit like a doll, but with something icy or steely underneath,” Kazan said. The Hollywood Reporter has East of Edenin New York on Wednesday evening. “And I felt in Florence this mixture of a very feminine presentation with, in a Jungian sense and not in a gender sense, masculinity in her soul. That she had a lot of raw emotion and action and action, which is very Cathy to me.”

Kazan was also struck by Pugh’s performance in 2019. Midday.

“I feel like this performance heralds a generational talent,” she said. “I think she’s a genius. It was very clear to me that, even though this character is very different from Cathy, if she can pull off this magic trick of a performance, she can do it.”

Kazan sought to center Cathy’s point of view and better understand the motivations behind this complicated antihero. Pugh also serves as executive producer on East of Edentaking a central role in the creation of the series since its arrival in 2020.

Pugh “felt very honored” when Kazan approached her.

“I couldn’t believe she wanted to choose me,” Pugh said. THR on the East of Eden red carpet premiere.

Beyond that, though, being able to help shape the adaptation through the role of executive producer, Pugh said, helped boost his confidence.

“She really wanted me to be a part of the process; she wanted to create it with me. And that was just huge,” Pugh said. “At that point in my career and my life, I was given an opportunity that was a huge moment for me to step up and lead in a different way. These moments in people’s careers are the beginning of true self-belief. This project meant a lot to me.”

Pugh also wrote about his long journey with East of Eden on Instagram, saying of Kazan: “Zoe Kazan poured her heart and soul into this project, I couldn’t have done anything without her. She was my protector, my work wife, my cheerleader, my confidence. She created something so epic that we all wanted to work on it.”

In East of Eden(the limited series has an 85% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes), Pugh in particular is praised for her performance.

In his criticism of East of Eden For THRChief TV critic Dan Fienberg writes that Pugh “rips apart one of fiction’s great and baffling antagonists, a woman so determined and unapologetically evil that she makes Becky Sharp a fictional character.” Vanity Fair look like a Girl Scout. …Having Pugh playing a character who, by her very nature, is reluctant to reveal her truth is an interesting choice that places responsibility on everyone around her who fails to recognize what is so obvious to viewers. Cathy is scary when she lies, but she’s even scarier when she tells the truth, with an unflinching honesty that is purely Pughian. She’s so good that even in the second half of the series, when Cathy ages past the point where Pugh is convincing, it still works.

Squire calls Pugh’s performance “career best”, with The United States today saying it makes the show a “must-see”.