Florence Pugh and director William Oldroyd on female empowerment in 'Lady Macbeth' at Sundance

I like to keep the material fresh, otherwise it just feels dull and I no longer understand why I'm saying something. So my preparation isn't necessarily going over the character, I like to keep it instinctive in terms of probably how I stood, definitely how she spoke. And lots of those things came within a second of me wearing the costume. So for example, that corset, when you're in it, you move completely differently, you breathe completely differently, you can't wrestle. Like one of the scenes, I have to fight Cosmo as Sebastian, you can't move in it and that's just kind of an idea of what it was like for women back then. Not only is she trapped in this house, she's trapped in this costume that she has to wear every single day and I think that was quite interesting that I didn't have to act in that, it was like, try, just try, try and move. I had worked with material, similar material to this, literature from this period before in the theatre. I directed a production of Ibsen's Ghosts, so it didn't, it felt sort of familiar territory to do a period piece, something which is also mid-19th century, but which had such a strong female protagonist. I really wanted to do something which was bold and original, but also something which people maybe felt that they, I think they thought they'd seen it before, could re-evaluate, come and see it again and get a fresh and radical take on a sort of traditional genre. My father bought you, along with a piece of land not fit enough for a cow to graze upon. You will remain indoors with your prayer book. Lady Macbeth is about a young girl, well woman, who is married, married into a household and it quickly goes wrong because she's basically imprisoned, she's taken away from her family, taken away from being outside. She basically fights back. For me it's always key to try and find a character that hasn't been there before and maybe something that I'm not used to and reading through scripts it's always something that I look for. With this script it was just kind of the best of everything, she was an incredible character. She was a woman that I loved and was kind of inspired by, aside from parts of it. She was something that really excited me. I like the fresh air, I like being outside. Take it off. Your nightdress, take it off. Face the wall. Face the wall! The film deals with a woman who is humiliated by two older men. The fact that it's written by a woman, produced by a woman, has over 50% of the cast and crew who are women is great, it's everything really for me. The reason it feels modern, people have said it feels radical modern, is because she acts in a way that's not expected of her in the time, whereas actually we would say as an audience, well of course she's going to act in this way, but you've got to put her in the context of the mid-19th century. I cannot bear to look at you. In terms of character and also women in this industry, not being embarrassed and being loud about it, I think that's a very good thing to have. The fact that we are very allowed to have a voice now is brilliant. The fact that more and more scripts are coming about with a lead for women is already moving forward. Things only happen when you shout about it and that's something that we're doing, I think, very well. And something like this film opens people's eyes because the reason why people are talking about it is because it's a period that we have never seen before. If that's one of the first, then there are going to be many after that. People want to see a difference, people want to see a difference with period films and with modern films, and this is a good starter, I'd say.