Vanityfair – Florence Pugh is oft-described as “a chameleonlike” actor and a boon for ensemble casts. But off-screen, while playing the part of herself on red carpets, at events, and generally being Florence Pugh, gone is the delicate balance that it takes to hide away in character. That is, she’s all brightness and big swings when it comes to her personal costuming.

“I think for me, I’ve always been one to be very bold. I liked turning heads even as a kid and, uh, ‘turning heads’ doesn’t even necessarily mean that I look good,” Pugh joked on a recent phone call with Vanity Fair. “When I started getting dressed up and going to events and going to red carpets, I remember my siblings reminding me like, Hey, do you remember when you would only wear neon colors and cover your face with paint? And that wasn’t that long ago!”

“It can be a very daunting thing to express yourself in that way,” she added. “But I think I’ve taken a page out of my childhood book, which is like, you have to find a way to show who you are. What a beautiful way to do that in clothing. If there’s anything that I’ve learned over the years, it’s that I can’t lose that. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from my stylist it’s that sometimes too much is too much. So I’ll give that one to Rebecca [Corbin Murray].”

The star of Little Women, Midsommar, and Black Widow now also stars in J.Crew’s latest campaign. The partnership between the young Brit and the American legacy brand was immediately simpatico, and she felt the campaign was a full reflection of herself. Besides pulling in her beloved bright colors and bold shapes, the brand gave her carte blanche on her hair style. She loves to change her hair, she told V.F., but often it’s not up to discretion. This was an opportunity to express herself rather than hew to the demands of a project. She went for a bit of a blonde shag.

“Well, most of the time, [I change my hair] because I’m doing a job, so I’m doing an acting gig and I’ve always been someone that’s had a lot of hair and I’ve never mind changing it. So I’ve always been quite adamant about not wearing a wig. That’s never been weird for me that I change my hair a lot.

“For J.Crew, that was the first time in a long time that I had really made a decision that was for me and for how I wanted to be seen. I haven’t been given the luxury of that because, you know, I do go from job to job sometimes and I need to be whatever a character the job needs to be. For that J.Crew shoot, I was very grateful that I could express the new side of me and guess what? In months time, I had to dye it back to brown. But that’s just the life of an actress.