East of Eden quickly became a major hit on Netflix after its release last month, but Florence Pugh isn’t basking in the shine.
“I can’t watch it, I can’t,” she said The Hollywood Reporter at an FYC event for the series on Friday, about how audiences and critical reaction felt. “It was too much with this one. The creative process was so long and there were so many of my sticky fingerprints everywhere – I was so nervous about releasing it because I was just going to be so sad if people didn’t understand it or didn’t like it. It was so much of my life and so much of me as an artist that I put into it that I just didn’t want to look. So I’m glad I didn’t, but apparently people love it!”
Pugh stars in and executive produces the limited series, an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s 1952 novel. She appears alongside Christopher Abbott and Mike Faist, with Zoe Kazan serving as writer and co-showrunner.
“It’s very overwhelming,” Kazan said of the show’s success. “Critics absolutely slammed this book and it found a huge popular audience. So there’s a part of me that believed and knew that there was an audience for it, but it’s a period piece and it’s very specific and from this very literary source. I feel so lucky and so grateful and relieved that people who want it are finding it.”
Pugh also noted that the experience made him want to “keep producing, I want to keep being a part of the projects from the beginning. I really feel like the benefits are much deeper and much deeper.”
“You really feel like you’ve given a part of your DNA, and seeing things come together before your eyes and seeing the ideas you had come to fruition – there’s no better feeling when the way you want to work and the way you want people to feel is actually shown on the set you helped design,” she added. “It’s such a beautiful place to improve work and I want to continue to do it.”
East of Eden is now streaming on Netflix.
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