On Wednesday evening, Florence Pugh was up on the stage of OVO Arena Wembley speaking up for something that counts: Palestine. During the enormous Together for Palestine fundraiser in London, the “Thunderbolts” and “Midsommar” star was brief yet loaded with significance in her talk to the many thousands-strong audience, reminding them that it is not possible to turn a deaf ear to Gaza’s agony.
“I’m gonna keep it short and simple. It has been such a special evening to be a part of it, to witness it. Thank you for showing up,” Pugh began. And then she spoke directly to the audience and left them with the kind of reality check that lingers: “A small note: silence in the face of such suffering is not neutrality. It is complicity.”
She didn’t stop there. “Empathy should not be this hard, and it should have never been this hard. I’m just going to leave that with you. Enjoy the rest of your evening, pressure on the government, and well done for being here.”
One Night of Unity
Pugh was ushered onto the stage by Riz Ahmed, another actor who has been vocal for years against injustice toward Palestine. The festival’s roster was loaded with musicians eager to take their platforms: Gorillaz, King Krule, Brian Eno, and PinkPantheress, Cat Burns, Bastille, James Blake, and Sampha.
PinkPantheress repeated Pugh’s urgency, saying to the audience: “We have a responsibility to use our platforms. Neutrality or silence shouldn’t be an option. Give Palestine your voice. And when your voice goes hoarse, hang your flags, wear your keffiyeh. Show them we are here.” This was not only a concert. It was musical resistance and a night to remind us that culture is politics and that artists can insist that things change.
History of Cheerleading by Pugh
This is not the first time Florence Pugh has defended Palestine. In April, she was among the signatories of a petition to the U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer demanding that he put the government’s “complicity in the atrocity in Gaza to an immediate end.”
The note was frank and uncompromising: “History is written in moments of moral clarity. This is one. The world is watching, and history will not forget. The children of Gaza cannot wait another minute. Prime Minister, what will you choose? Complicity in war crimes, or the courage to act?”
Watch Florence Pugh’s entire speech at Together for Palestine below:
