Florence Pugh Mourns Sebastián Lelio: 'My Heart Is Broken'

Florence Pugh posted a tribute to Sebastián Lelio on social media Monday, days after the Chilean filmmaker's death at 52. Lelio died last week from what his partner Amalia Kassai described as health complications, and Chilean news reports said he was found dead in his home.

Pugh starred in Lelio's 2022 film “The Wonder.” “My heart is broken,” she wrote, describing a man “so firmly on our side” who dedicated his work to telling women's stories and their hardships. She also recalled his “bright blue beaming eyes that stared into your soul even if you were talking about breakfast.”

Food is what bonded them. Pugh said they fell in love over meat, stews, cheese and red wine — “OH RED WINE we both would scream” — and that he took her to dinners in Dublin while they discussed the project. She wrote that just before learning of his death she had bought a special cut of beef and a special red wine, cooked it, drank it and thought of him. “I smiled through tears as I looked at my plate because I knew he would have smiled at it too.”

Kassai announced the death in a translated statement, calling Lelio “a wonderful person who made significant contributions to Chilean culture at important moments in its history” and asking for privacy as the family grieves. Beyond “The Wonder,” Lelio was best known for 2017's “A Fantastic Woman,” which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Pugh closed by crediting Lelio with teaching her “the need and importance of dancing. Regularly. Ugly but human dancing,” and called him patient, gentle and brilliant. “This loss has really hurt my heart, and a big painful reminder that we don't have forever.”

Lelio had been working on an adaptation of Alejandro Zambra's novel “The Chilean Poet.” He was also set to direct “Voyagers,” with Andrew Garfield cast as Carl Sagan and Daisy Edgar-Jones as Ann Druyan.