No, your eyes do not deceive you—when Andrew Garfield walked the red carpet at the BFI London Film Festival screening of We Live in Time on Thursday, October 17, he was joined by a slightly altered version of his onscreen love interest, Florence Pugh.
Garfield’s fellow Oscar-nominated actor did not actually attend the London premiere. Instead, Pugh was there in spirit—as well as cardboard form. Garfield sauntered down the carpet holding and posing for pictures with a life-size cutout of Pugh. The photo for the prop appears to be of Pugh at a recent New York screening of their film, where she wore a black lacy cutout gown by Christian Dior. Pugh took notice of her cardboard stand-in, reposting Vanity Fair’s post about the stunt and writing, “Lol. Genius. Well done Andrew!”
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Pugh also shared her apologies for missing the London debut, writing on her Instagram Story: “It truly hurts not being there to celebrate the release but I’m raising glass from very far away. Love to you all. Fingers crossed you don’t get up and leave.”
As Garfield confirmed during a recent appearance at the San Sebastian Film Festival, Pugh has been called to New Zealand, where she is filming the upcoming Netflix series East of Eden. Zoe Kazan’s adaptation of the acclaimed John Steinbeck novel casts Pugh opposite Christopher Abbott of Poor Things, Mike Faist of Challengers, and Hoon Lee of Warrior.
Before Pugh was called away from the press tour, her crackling chemistry with Garfield was on full display during numerous joint appearances in support of We Live in Time. The actors collaborated for the first time when they were cast as an onscreen couple. “I never met her, but I’ve been a huge fan of her work, and very struck by her ability to portray a degree of strength and robustness,” director John Crowley previously told VF. “I thought if she could take that and get towards the vulnerability that’s needed towards the end of the story, that could be really rich and interesting.”
The costars share many emotionally and physically intimate scenes in the film, which premiered in the United States on October 11. “It was scary because it was like, well, we don’t know each other, and this is high-stakes because…we have to find a way to express the depths of universal love and loss together,” Garfield told VF.
But once the performers became acquainted with each other, “I felt very grown-up,” said Pugh. “I felt like I was coming at it in a different way, and I had someone who could hold me and protect me in the same way that I was holding Andrew and protecting him. And it was a very, very fluid language between the two of us, and that was just a very powerful thing to create with someone.” No stand-ins required there.
