Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh Bring TIFF Sex and Sobs in ‘We Live in Time’

Like a football player emerging from the huddle, Florence Pugh squatted and grunted as she reenacted a dramatic scene from “We Live in Time” after the film made its splashy debut on Day 2 of the Toronto International Film Festival. During a post-screening Q&A with co-star Andrew Garfield and director John Crowley, Pugh described the making of a wild scene from the tear-jerker cancer drama in which she gives birth in a dingy gas station bathroom while Garfield and two strangers looked on.

“It was amazing. I mean, you saw like seven minutes of it. We did 15-minute births like eight times. It was insane,” she told the sniffling audience. “The only problem was, I didn’t have a baby that came out, so I was just so exhausted and sweaty and tired, and I got no endorphins or anything. … I’ve never had a child, which is pretty key to knowing how to have a baby. But I do know a lot of amazing women that have had loads of babies, and I’ve heard all of their stories.”

Garfield added: “It’s weird that we made that toilet a holy site.”

The A24 film follows Almut (Pugh) and Tobias (Garfield), a blossoming couple who must navigate her possibly fatal cancer diagnosis and an uncertain prognosis. Garfield, who lost his mother to pancreatic cancer in 2019, appeared to be overcome with emotion as he answered a question from an audience member about how he prepared for playing a character with a loved one suffering from the disease.

“It’s one of those scripts where so much was taken care of already. The writing was so precise,” he said. “I don’t know if you know Nick Payne’s work. He wrote an amazing play called ‘Constellations,’ making sure I got that right. … And the way he writes about relationships is just so exquisite and so singular as a playwright and as a screenwriter. So I think there was just a really solid foundation. And in terms of preparation for the particularities, … you kind of don’t want to know what the next take is going to be. And that can only happen if you have a scene partner who you can just pay attention to and tune into and listen to and know that you will end up in the most honest, authentic place with, and that’s Florence.”

Both Garfield and Pugh are Oscar nominees, and “We Live in Time” could put both back in awards-season contention. The pair, who engage in steamy sex in multiple scenes, were asked about their chemistry. Pugh shrugged, drawing laughter from the crowd, and then offered her take.

“We did rehearse. We had, I think, two weeks of really special, beautiful time, which is always such a wonderful thing when you get rehearsal time for any movie, where we would just talk through scenes, talk through how we felt,” she explained.

Crowley, who is returning to TIFF after his 2019 feature “The Goldfinch” screened at the festival, used a nonlinear story structure to depict the couple’s love story, including their first meeting when Almut hits Tobias while driving at night, sending them both to the hospital. Crowley talked about his previous collaboration with Garfield (the 2007 drama “Boy A”) and how he has evolved since then.

“He was conjuring a child in that performance, in a way that was haunting and very beautiful. And now here he is. He’s a man,” he said as Garfield tilted his head back and forth at that depiction, as though the matter was debatable. “And he’s sort of gathered all the complexity emotionally along the way. And when I read the part, I thought instantly of him, partly because of the scale emotionally that he’s comfortable operating in and also by because it was humor. I thought that he would play the humor in a way that wouldn’t make the character too quirky, that he would make it completely real and relatable.”

A24 is set to give “We Live in Time” a limited theatrical release in the United States on Oct. 11. It is certain to strike a chord with audiences familiar with the tough decisions people have to make regarding treatment after being given a cancer diagnosis. Pugh, who had a reportedly difficult time making Olivia Wilde’s 2022 drama “Don’t Worry Darling,” raved about her experience working with Crowley and Garfield.

The “Black Widow” star said, “It was like enjoying every single scene, even the hardest things you could possibly imagine that you’d ever have to say to anyone in your life or hear that news. It was so enjoyable to be dancing that dance with with all these people involved.”