If there’s anyone who has earned a vacation this past year, it’s Florence Pugh, and it looks like the prolific actress is finally basking in the success of all her hard onscreen work this year with a much-deserved post-awards season beach vacation. (Honestly, we haven’t seen her looking this relaxed since she iconically skipped out on all that Don’t Worry Darling drama to drink Aperol spritzes in Venice.)
On Thursday, March 21, the 28-year-old British star shared a photo to her Instagram Story, showing the actress cheekily sticking her tongue out while wearing a striped bikini on an indiscriminate tropical beach, soundtracked to “Charmed” by Σtella and Redinho:
Given that the ever-fashionable starlet has been known to frequently wear body-baring looks on the red carpets and at awards shows, from see-through sheer dresses to free-the-nipple Valentino frocks, a simple bikini is pretty tame for Pugh.
Some good old-fashioned R&R is no doubt needed for the actress, who appeared in several of the biggest movies of the past year. She was, of course, part of Christopher Nolan’s star-studded Oppenheimer cast, playing Jean Tatlock opposite Cillian Murphy’s eponymous A-bomb physicist. In case you haven’t heard, that movie did pretty well last year, winning seven Academy Awards (including statuettes for Best Picture, Best Director for Nolan and Best Actor for Murphy) and becoming the biggest biopic of all time at the box office.
That would be enough for most performers but then Pugh followed up that explosive title with Dune: Part Two, Denis Villeneuve’s highly anticipated and critically acclaimed sci-fi sequel. In a cast that’s a who’s who of young Hollywood — the film also stars such big-name talents as Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Austin Butler — Pugh stood out as Princess Irulan Corrino, the eldest daughter of Emperor Shaddam IV, played by the legendary Christopher Walken. As of press time, Dune 2 grossed more than $500 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing title of 2024.
And, yes, there’s even more: Pugh also popped up in the 2023 Japanese animated fantasy film The Boy and the Heron, written and directed by the great Hayao Miyazaki. In the acclaimed flick — which won the BAFTA, the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for the animated feature category — Florence did English-language voicework as the character Kiriko. That movie was also a box-office success, grossing $167.8 million worldwide, so maybe the key to making a ton of money at the movie theater is simply to hire Florence Pugh?
The Oscar nominee will have more projects on her plate in the coming year, including filming the upcoming Marvel movie Thunderbolts — in which she will reprise her role as Yelena Belova — and the romance film We Live in Time, directed by John Crowley and co-starring Andrew Garfield. Frankly, we’re tired just thinking about it all, so here’s hoping that Flo is enjoying the sand and the surf while she can.
In the meantime, you can watch Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock in Oppenheimer with a Peacock subscription, or see her as Princess Irulan in Dune: Part Two, which is streaming over on Max. The Boy and the Heron will be coming to Netflix later this year.
