Braff wrote the role specifically for Pugh while they lived together during the COVID-19 lockdown, but that doesn’t mean that he let her have any sneak peeks at what he was writing. He would only give her some vague ideas about the story while they talked about it later:
“I wasn’t allowed to read any of it. I wasn’t allowed to read any of the scenes as he was writing it and he’d come up from the office [having] locked himself in there for a few hours and then would just start telling me all the pieces that he had discovered and I really wasn’t allowed to read anything. And so I kind of got to know the script and I got to know the character through us discussing it over dinner.”
At least Pugh got some idea as to what the story was going to be about through their dinner conversations, but it must have still been frustrating not being able to read the written page. After all, Braff used parts of Pugh’s personality to fill out her character, and also included things from her life, like her musical talents. Eventually Pugh would write some original songs for the film — and I hope she didn’t let Braff hear or read them until she was done, just to be fair.