Florence Pugh releases first material as singer-songwriter
Two self-penned tracks appear on the soundtrack of her new film, 'A Good Person'
By Joe Goggins
Florence Pugh has released her first material as a singer-songwriter, on the soundtrack of her new film, A Good Person.
The Oscar-nominated actress has past form as a musician, having uploaded a slew of live performances to her YouTube channel between 2013 and 2016; as well as covers of Coldplay, Lucy Rose and The Lumineers, early versions of original tracks like ‘My Dove’ and ‘Square One’ appear. She was also featured on her brother Toby Sebastian’s new single ‘Midnight’ earlier this month, appearing alongside him in the video.
The arrival of the soundtrack for Zach Braff’s A Good Person, though, marks the first official release of music by Pugh. Out today (March 24), the same day as the movie hits UK cinemas, the album contains the original score for the film, written by Bryce Dessner of The National, as well as two songs penned by Pugh for her character to perform: ‘The Best Part’ and ‘I Hate Myself’. You can hear both tracks below.
“I wrote these songs for my character Allison in the movie to perform, but also as a way to process and digest her mindset and her low headspace,” Pugh explained, per The Guardian. “It was unbelievably helpful and hard; I wanted a song to reflect the self-hatred she had for herself in a way that the audience can truly understand.”
A Good Person follows Allison as she deals with the fallout from a fatal accident; it also stars Morgan Freeman and Molly Shannon. It is the third film written and directed by Scrubs star Braff, after 2014’s Wish I Was Here and his cult favourite 2004 debut, Garden State, the soundtrack for which he hand-picked, and which went on to become highly influential in the US indie rock scene of the 2000s.
His latest has met with mixed reviews on its UK release; it streams exclusively on Sky Cinema from April 28. Pugh next appears on screen this year in decidedly higher-budget fare, with roles in both Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two lined up for July and November, respectively.