🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐

In The Wonder, Florence Pugh plays Nightingale nurse Lib Wright, who travels from England to a remote Irish village in 1862 to investigate claims that a young girl has been miraculously fasting for months. This isn’t the first time Pugh has traveled back to the 1860s, though: She was also nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Amy March in Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of Little Women, set during the American Civil War. But as she tells Krista Smith in a new episode of Skip Intro, Pugh won’t strap on a corset for just any old period piece. She needs to feel a connection and kinship with these women of the past.

In The Wonder, which is based on Emma Donoghue’s novel of the same name, Pugh’s character feels very modern despite the film’s period setting. She has traveled to war zones and seen things uncommon for a woman of her time. As such, she commands attention, even in a world dominated by men. “I particularly found Lib interesting, because she’s a Nightingale nurse, and Nightingale nurses during that time were seen as angels,” Pugh says. “They were seen as the purest people.” 

Uzo Aduba's Dramatic Reading From The WonderLib Wright, played by Florence Pugh, arrives in a strange place.

Still, Lib’s experience means nothing to the people she meets in rural Ireland while observing 11-year-old Anna O’Donnell (Kíla Lord Cassidy), who claims to have been living without food for months. When she tries to warn the council of men who have hired her that the child is in mortal danger, she is repeatedly ignored, despite her qualifications. “The fact that she has all of these badges, this CV, and goes to a village that has hired her and they don’t want to hear what she has to say is another wonderful nod to what it was like to be a woman back then,” Pugh says. “You can have the best history of jobs in your back pocket, and it didn’t matter. You have this woman who has a voice, she’s been given a voice, but no one wants to listen.” 

To play Lib, Pugh delved into the real history of Nightingale nurses, which helped her better understand how Lib would react in certain situations. “These women had to write letters and enroll themselves and their history would be checked. And if there was even a whisper of the fact that they drink booze, a whisper of the fact that they had a baby somewhere that would need their attention, they were axed off the list.”

Lib has few personal belongings, but her most precious possession is a pair of knit booties that she later reveals belonged to her daughter, who passed away. Straying from the decorum demanded of Nightingale nurses, Lib doses herself with drugs and clutches the garments, grasping at her happiest memories. 

Pugh worked closely with Oscar-winning director Sebastián Lelio to really get a feel for what the character would have lived through, including the tragic loss of her child. “[It’s] always wonderful when a director is trying to include you and wants your opinion,” she says. “He was so dedicated to her story and her pain of losing a baby and all of those scenes where she’s high as a kite.”

Lelio’s care for Lib, Pugh adds, left her free to really explore some of the deepest corners of the character’s psyche. “When someone is so dedicated to those things, you always go, ‘Wow, you are caring that much about something, something that you could have clearly overlooked. We could have made that high moment about something else.’ And it makes you realize that you’re safe, really safe.”

The Wonder is now streaming on Netflix. For more behind-the-scenes insights, tune in to this week’s Skip Intro on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Wonder Main Trailer