As she sizzles on screen in Netflix's East Of Eden... How the plaudits for 'brave' Florence's on-screen nudity and the sneering at 'sexualised' Trump supporter Sydney expose a glaring hypocrisy at heart of woke Hollywood

Published: 22:59 BST, 17 October 2026 | Updated: 07:18 BST, 18 October 2026

She is the woman everyone in Hollywood is talking about, and with good reason.

Florence Pugh ’s chilling portrayal of sociopathic temptress Cathy Ames in Netflix ’s hit series East Of Eden has earned the British actress the biggest rave reviews of her career and put her firmly in the running for a Best Actress Emmy , the TV equivalent of an Oscar.

The seven-part adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic tale of good versus evil has become the streaming giant’s most successful drama of the year, with Pugh, 30, emerging as its undisputed star.

But while critics have been falling over themselves to praise her mesmerising performance, it is another aspect of her work that has set Hollywood tongues wagging.

For in an industry where actresses routinely turn to body doubles for the most graphic sex scenes, Pugh has made a point of doing them all herself.

And with three intimacy coordinators on the East of Eden set, she certainly had her work cut out.

Her character Cathy wastes little time in deploying her considerable sexual charms, seducing an older male teacher before embarking on affairs involving both her husband and his brother.

As the ruthless Cathy eventually finds herself running a brothel, the role demands multiple scenes of full nudity, something that has largely stunned executives in Hollywood who have lauded Pugh for her ‘bravery’.

Florence Pugh’s chilling portrayal of sociopathic temptress Cathy Ames in Netflix’s hit series East Of Eden has earned the British actress the biggest rave reviews of her career

While the Tinseltown sisterhood applauds Pugh's approach to on-screen nudity, they are less fawning of the Make America Great Again darling Sydney Sweeney, who posed nude in a campaign for Novig

Although some have compared her readiness to disrobe to the recent controversial adverts featuring actress Sydney Sweeney and two well-placed American footballs, which we’ll come back to.

A senior executive at Disney Studios told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The reason Florence has become such a major talking point is that it’s so rare for an actress of her stature, or any actress with that level of name recognition, to do sex scenes any more, particularly ones as intimate and graphic as she does in East Of Eden.’

The source continued: ‘For many years actresses were coerced into doing things they didn’t want to do. You only have to think about Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct and how she was tricked into doing that infamous leg-crossing scene.’

Stone wrote in her 2021 memoir The Beauty Of Living Twice that director Paul Verhoeven tricked her into removing her underwear, claiming the light would bounce off her in a way that nothing intimate would be revealed.

She said the first time she realised her private parts were exposed was when she watched the finished film in a room full of male producers and agents.

The Disney executive added: ‘When the #MeToo movement came along, Hollywood listened and adopted intimacy coordinators and stunt doubles so no actress ever had to feel she was being coerced.

‘It’s practically unheard of for actresses to do nudity. For Pugh to turn all that on its head, well, it’s brave of her.’

Stars including Julia Roberts, Sarah Jessica Parker, Megan Fox, Jessica Alba, Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Garner have all been adamant about refusing to do naked scenes, with Roberts declaring: ‘To act with my clothes on is a performance. To act with my clothes off is a documentary. I would never do nudity in a film.’

Which is why Pugh’s decision is all the more unusual and refreshing. Pugh, who made her name in films like Little Women, Don’t Worry Darling and Oppenheimer as well as Marvel blockbuster Spider-Man: Brand New Day, says her ‘liberating’ childhood made her refuse to feel ashamed of her body.

Born in Oxfordshire, the third of four children to Clinton Pugh, a successful restaurateur, and Deborah, a former dancer, she spent several years living in Manilva, Spain, after the family moved there on doctor’s orders when Florence was diagnosed with asthma and tracheomalacia, a rare condition causing a weak windpipe.

The family moved back to Britain when she was six, and she was educated privately at Wychwood School and St Edward’s School in Oxford.

The 5ft 4in actress has described her upbringing in an artistic household (two of her siblings are also actors) as allowing her to ‘view the human body as natural rather than something to be hidden or ashamed of’.

She first caught the less racy eye of Sunday night BBC One viewers in 2018, as a radical actress in an adaptation of John le Carre’s espionage drama The Little Drummer Girl.

Pugh recently wore a see-through dress through which her nipples were visible for an East of Eden press event in Paris

Her big break came a year later when she starred in the critically-acclaimed horror film Midsommar, and then as Amy March in the period drama Little Women, which earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.

Pugh was ordered to lose weight early in her career but always felt comfortable in her own skin.

In an interview with Louis Theroux she said: ‘I’m quite confident. I’m quite happy in my skin. I’ve always been able to make sure that I’m heard.

‘That being said, even though I know that I believe that, and even though I know that I felt that at the time, there are plenty of things that I remember where it was just completely inappropriate to have asked me to do that, to have directed me in that way.’

She spoke of one ‘s***’ intimacy coordinator who made her feel ‘weird and so awkward’ but added: ‘My view is changing about it as well because I’m now having fantastic experiences with intimacy coordinators.

‘I’ve been able to understand better through working with great ones in sex scenes, finding the story of what it is, what kind of sex it is, how do you touch each other, how long have you been having sex for?

‘When I worked with a fantastic coordinator, I was like, of course, this is what I’ve been missing, understanding the dance of intimacy as opposed to just shooting a sex scene.’

East of Eden is directed by Zoe Kazan, granddaughter of Elia Kazan who directed the 1955 adaptation which turned James Dean into a screen icon.

She said the graphic sex scenes were never aimed at titillating the audience. Kazan wrote the part with Pugh in mind and said both she and the actress agreed the sex had to ‘work’, which is why many of the men Cathy has sex with in the brothel are virtually faceless.

It emerges in the series that Cathy becomes a monster after being sexually abused as a child. Kazan said: ‘I wanted to put it on screen as work, not as an objectification of her body or something scintillating.’

Professor Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, 56, head of University of California, Los Angeles’s under-graduate film programme and director of Body Parts, a documentary examining the representation of nudity in cinema, believes Pugh ‘owns’ her scenes and confidence changes the balance of power on set.

‘Owning her nudity makes her appear more confident and gives less power to the other people involved, the director and producers and cameraman, who have their own vision of a scene,’ she said.

Rather than retreating from controversy, Pugh appears to relish challenging outrage.

On a fashion show red carpet in 2022 she wore a striking sheer pink Valentino gown through which her nipples were visible, prompting a storm of commentary. ‘It really wound people up,’ she told Elle magazine.

‘It’s the freedom that people are scared of, the fact I’m comfortable and happy. Unfortunately, we’ve become so terrified of the human body that we can’t even look at my two little cute nipples behind fabric in a way that isn’t sexual.