East of Eden is a Netflix hit project adapted from the 1952 John Steinbeck novel. Florence Pugh played the lead role in the limited series, but she also handled executive production.
Despite serving both roles with much dedication, Pugh has not read any reviews and isn’t basking in the glory of the major hit.
Pugh told The Hollywood Reporter at a FYC event for the series, “I can’t look at it, I can’t.”
“It was too much with this one. The process of making this was so long and it had so many of my sticky fingerprints all over it — I was so nervous to release it because I was just going to be so sad if people didn’t understand it or didn’t like it,” Pugh added.
Pugh revealed, “It was so much of my life and so much of me as a performer that I put into it that I just didn’t want to look. So I’m glad I didn’t, but apparently people like it!”
In the series, Pugh stars alongside Christopher Abbott and Mike Faist. Zoe Kazan wrote and served as a co-showrunner.
Talking about the huge success of the series, Kazan shared, “It’s very overwhelming.”
He continued, “The critics absolutely panned this book and it found this enormous popular audience, so there’s part of me that believed and knew there was an audience out there for this, but this is a period piece, and it’s very specific and from this very literary
“I just feel so lucky and so grateful and relieved that the people who want this are finding it,” Kazan concluded.
Florence Pugh also noted that she enjoyed the process of being an executive producer on this project. So much so that she wants to keep on producing.
She said, “You really feel like you’ve given a slice of your DNA over, and to watch the thing come together in front of your eyes and to see ideas that you’ve had come to fruition — there’s no better feeling when the way that you want to work and the way that you want people to feel is actually being shown on the set that you’ve helped design.”
“It’s such a beautiful place to make the work feel better, and I want to keep doing it,” Pugh concluded.
This story was originally published byParadeon Nov 15, 2026, where it first appeared in theEntertainmentsection. Add Parade as aPreferred
