Haley Lu Richardson Says She Turned Down ‘Disturbing’ ‘Midsommar’ Script: ‘I Just Don’t Have It in Me’
Samantha Bergeson
Haley Lu Richardson is reflecting on the horror film that got away.
The “White Lotus” Season 2 star revealed that she turned down auditioning for Ari Aster’s “Midsommar” due to having already starred in “disturbing” film “Split,” written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
“There are a lot [of roles] that got away. But I did get the script for ‘Midsommar,'” Richardson told Backstage. “I remember reading it; it was such a well-written, creepy script. I actually still haven’t seen the movie because I kind of can’t bring myself to watch it.”
She continued, “They wanted to meet me. I had actually done ‘Split,’ I think, a year or two before [in 2016]. And I was like, ‘I don’t want to do another disturbing movie right now. I just don’t have it in me, going around and crying at these disturbing things. It wasn’t something that I wanted, and I felt really strongly about that. So I didn’t even take the meeting.”
Richardson added, “And, you know, that’s a pretty iconic movie, isn’t it? But I do think that everything happens the way that it’s supposed to. There was a reason I didn’t have it in me. And also, Florence Pugh is just such a good actor.”
“Midsommar” breakout actress Pugh recently admitted to “abusing” herself during the intense production. Pugh played Dani in the 2019 thriller, a psychology grad student whose toxic relationship unravels while visiting a cult-like community in Sweden.
“When I did it, I was so wrapped up in her and I’ve never had this ever before with any of my characters,” Pugh said during the “Off Menu” podcast. “I’d never played someone that was in that much pain before, and I would put myself in really shitty situations that maybe other actors don’t need to do but I would just be imagining the worst things.”
Pugh recalled, “Each day the content would be getting more weird and harder to do. I was putting things in my head that were getting worse and more bleak. I think by the end I probably, most definitely abused my own self in order to get that performance.”
