Like a football player emerging from a crowd, Florence Pugh crouched and let out a gasp as she reenacted a dramatic scene from “We Live in Time” after the film debuted on the second day of the Toronto International Film Festival. During a post-screening Q&A with co-star Andrew Garfield and director John Crowley, Pugh described crafting a wild scene from the tear-jerking cancer drama in which she gives birth in a dingy gas station bathroom while Garfield and two strangers watch.
“It was amazing. I mean, you watched like seven minutes of it. We did 15-minute births eight times. It was crazy,” she told the breathless audience. “The only problem is, I had never had a child, so I was so exhausted and sweaty and tired, and I had no endorphins or anything like that… I had never had a child, which is essential to knowing how to have a child. But I know a lot of amazing women who have had lots of children, and I’ve heard all their stories.”
“It's strange that we made this toilet a sacred place,” Garfield added.
The A24 production follows Almut (Pugh) and Tobias (Garfield), a thriving couple who must deal with her potentially fatal cancer diagnosis and an uncertain prognosis. Garfield, who lost his mother to pancreatic cancer in 2019, seemed overcome with emotion when answering a question from an audience member about how he prepared to play a character with a loved one suffering from the disease.
“It’s one of those scripts that was really taken care of. The writing was so precise,” he said. “I don’t know if you know Nick Payne’s work. He wrote a wonderful play called Constellations , and he made sure I got it right. … And the way he writes about relationships is so wonderful and unique as a playwright and a screenwriter. So I think there was a really solid foundation. In terms of preparing for the details, … you don’t want to know what the next shot is going to be. And that can only happen if you have a scene partner that you can just pay attention to and listen to and know that you’re going to end up in the most honest and authentic place, and that’s Florence.”
Both Garfield and Pugh are Oscar-nominated, and “We Live in Time” could put them both back in the running for awards season. The pair, who have sex in multiple scenes, were asked about their chemistry. Pugh shrugged, prompting laughter from the audience, then offered her opinion.
“We actually rehearsed. I think we had two weeks of really special, beautiful time, which is always great when you get time to rehearse for any film, where we were just talking about the scenes, talking about our feelings,” she explained.
Crowley, who returns to the Toronto International Film Festival after his 2019 film “The Goldfinch,” used a nonlinear story structure to depict the couple’s love story, including their first meeting when Almut hits Tobias while driving at night, sending them both to the hospital. Crowley spoke about his previous collaboration with Garfield (the 2007 drama “Boy A”) and how it has evolved since then.
“He was bringing a kid to that performance, in a way that was so scary and beautiful. And now here he is. He’s a man,” he said, as Garfield nodded back and forth at the portrayal, as if it were debatable. “He kind of brought all the emotional complexity along the way. And when I read the part, I immediately thought of him, partly because of the emotional range he’s comfortable working with and also because he was funny. I thought he would play the humor in a way that wouldn’t make the character too outlandish, and that he would make it completely real and relatable.”
A24 is set to release “We Live in Time” in limited theaters in the U.S. on Oct. 11. It’s sure to resonate with audiences who know the tough decisions people have to make regarding treatment after being diagnosed with cancer. Pugh, who reportedly had a tough time making Olivia Wilde’s 2022 drama “Don’t Worry Darling,” opened up about her experience working with Crowley and Garfield.
“It was like enjoying every scene, even the hardest things you could imagine that you might have to say to someone in your life or hear this news,” the “Black Widow” star said. “It was so much fun dancing with all these people involved.”
