Drama “Lady Macbeth” had its world premiere in Toronto on September 9 — but its leading actress Florence Pugh missed the event because she was in so much demand back home.

    Ever since her breakthrough role in 2015’s “The Falling,” Pugh has been hailed as one of Britain’s brightest rising stars.

    “Lady Macbeth,” which had its first screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, sees the actress in her first lead role.

    But the 19-year-old from Oxfordshire wasn’t able to make it to Canada as she’s busy filming an action thriller in London with Liam Neeson.

    “It is a shame,” Pugh admitted in a phone interview after a day on set. “Everyone’s tried so hard to get me there but unfortunately I’m on quite a tight schedule.”

    In “Lady Macbeth,” Pugh plays Katherine — a teenage bride in 19th century rural England stifled by her loveless marriage to a man twice her age.

    The film, an adaptation of Nikolai Leskov’s 1865 Russian novella “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” is the debut feature of theater director William Oldroyd.

    It was the only U.K. film in competition for Toronto’s Platform jury prize and will also screen at the San Sebastian Film Festival, which runs from September 16 to 24, and the BFI London Film Festival in October.

    Pugh signed up as soon as she had read the screenplay by playwright Alice Birch.

    Pugh’s role sees her transform from innocent bride to calculating killer after she begins an affair with a farmhand (Cosmo Jarvis) on her husband’s estate.

    “I think the wonderful thing about Katherine is that she is such a child,” says Pugh. “She doesn’t understand consequences and she doesn’t understand much about what she’s doing until it’s too late.”

    Pugh, who’s been acting and singing since the age of 7, made her film debut opposite “Game of Thrones” star Maisie Williams in Carol Morley’s “The Falling,” about a mysterious fainting epidemic at an all-girls school in 1969. It was shot in Oxford where Pugh was born and went to school.

    Her role as the rebellious Abbie saw her nominated for the best newcomer award at the BFI London Film Festival.

    “‘The Falling’ was a big, flashy bizarre experience,” she says. “I kept on saying at the time it was a fluke because I did the audition and I didn’t think anything would come of it.

    “Now I’ve gone from working with Maisie to doing a lead role. ‘Lady Macbeth’ is a great opportunity for me to prove that maybe the outcome of ‘The Falling’ was not necessarily a fluke.”

    Last year Pugh made a U.S. TV pilot, “Studio City,” in California and she was recently seen on ITV in the detective drama “Marcella,” starring Anna Friel.

    (SD-Agencies)