Florence Pugh on Method Perfuming and Max Mara’s New Scent

On a cloudless spring afternoon in a terraced suite at Six Senses Rome, Florence Pugh sits on a bouclé sofa discussing the yeasty whiff of her dog’s feet. “It’s not a nice smell, but it’s an amazing smell,” she says, breaking into that famous gravelly laugh. I’m catching the award-winning actress on her fourth hour of back-to-back press interviews, yet she appears freshly polished in a white button-down and black mesh skirt, her bob slicked back, her complexion lit gold as if she’s made a deal with the sun. Pugh has roughly 50 minutes before she needs to head back to the glam chair to reset for tonight’s dinner, and if it weren’t for the smattering of publicists in the corner, ready to swoop in, I’d assume she had nothing but time to rattle off her comfort scents. To round out the list: self-tanner, the park at 4 p.m., garlic and onion sizzling on the stove, and, as of a few months ago, Max Mara’s Le Parfum.

Pugh, with a “very sensitive nose” and a penchant for rich, “feminine” aromas, has long considered herself a fragrancehead. “I’ve grown up with perfume my whole life. I remember watching my mom apply her perfume, really studying where she put it,” she says. “She would let me have some on my wrist when we’d go out for dinners, and I would just be so excited.” Today, perfume remains an integral part of her daily regimen, personally and professionally. “Every character of mine has a different perfume. I find it really important to locate who that woman is and what she smells like,” she says. “Perfume will be the last thing that I apply [before] I go on set. I get myself into costume, I put my scent on, and it’s the final piece that builds that person for me.”