Oxford movie star Florence Pugh in horror film Midsommar

After starring in Lady Macbeth, an adaptation of John le Carre’s The Little Drummer Girl and wrestling flick Fighting with My Family, her acting skills are given a new test in the chilling drama which hits UK cinema screens today.

In Midsommar, directed by Ari Aster, Ms Pugh, who grew up in Cowley Road, plays Dani who is going through a rocky patch with her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor).

He invites her to join him and pals Josh (William Jackson Harper), Mark (Will Poulter) and Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) on a summertime trip to a commune in Halsingland, Sweden, where Pelle grew up.

After a long flight and a four-hour drive into the Swedish countryside, the friends emerge into a forest clearing dotted with large wooden structures and white-robed figures tending the land.

Horrific scenes ensue as the group of friends are taken in by the locals who force them to take part in a series of life-threatening rituals.

Ms Pugh, 23, told Entertainment magazine that she found it emotionally draining to star in the horror movie.

She said: “I had never come close to any of the trauma that Dani had, that level of pain and that level of exhaustion, so that was automatically daunting to me.

“I think with something as specific and as vulnerable as grief, whether it’s in a script or whether it’s in real life, it is real and you have to be sensitive about that and you have to know what you’re getting into and that’s always alarming when you don’t know.

“That was something that had always slightly scared me. But then that’s Ari.

“It’s scary, it’s sensitive, and we made it through.

“It was exhausting as well, because you have to find ways of tapping into that.

“The best thing for me to do was imagine the worst thing happening to your sister.”

The actress added on Twitter: “This film extracted sweat, tears and PTSD from the making of it. The film made me wiser, bolder, stronger and weaker during and after the film.”

So far the film has gained positive reviews, with the Guardian awarding it five stars.

Film critic Damon Smith said: “There are moments of nail-biting perfection as the writer-director conjures terror in broad daylight in a similar vein to The Wicker Man, intimating that we should all be wary of the kindness of strangers - especially those with freshly picked wildflowers braided in their flaxen hair.”

He added: “Oxford-born actor Pugh tethers our unwavering sympathy to her grief-scarred heroine and her fearless performance papers over some of the tiny cracks in the script.”

Ms Pugh’s movie career has been going from strength to strength and she has been cast in the 2020 Marvel movie Black Widow alongside Scarlett Johansson.

The actress is a former pupil of former Cokethorpe School, Wychwood School and St Edward’s School.

Her father Clinton Pugh runs restaurants in Cowley Road including Cafe Coco.