On paper, We Live in Time seems thoughtfully formulated to be the perfect tearjerker for today. John Crowley, the celebrated helmer of the stunning Saoirse Ronan romance Brooklyn, teams with heralded actors/internet darlings Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in a weepy romance of wooing and tragic loss.

Though early audiences and reviewers alike fawned over John Crowley’s We Live in Time, star Florence Pugh says those watching aren’t the only ones affected. The actress revealed this week that the film pushed her to be more active in finding love in her own life.

Ahead of the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of We Live in Time on Friday, Sept. 6, director John Crowley told PEOPLE exclusively that he was “stunned“ Pugh shaved her head for the role. The director, 55, said that before Pugh committed to the cut, he brainstormed ways to give her a shaved-head look with the hair and makeup department.

ABC Florence Pugh needed a summer vacation. In an interview with British Vogue, Pugh — who in recent years starred in Marvel’s Black Widow and Hawkeye; Oppenheimer; Dune: Part Two; Marvel’s Thunderbolts;