“On paper, this could have been a disaster,” Demi Moore said in a recent interview with The Independent. She was speaking, of course, of her highly acclaimed performance in Coralie Fargeat‘s recently released body horror satire “The Substance.” The film, which won the Best Screenplay award at Cannes and the People’s Choice Midnight Madness award at TIFF, follows Moore’s character, a popular aerobics show host named Elisabeth Sparkle, as she starts using a black market drug to make herself appear younger. Brilliantly skewering the beauty industrial complex, the film and Moore’s performance have been widely lauded, garnering her serious Oscar buzz. For Moore, though, the real success of taking part in a project like this was finding comfort in her own skin, a result she says comes from the bond formed between her and the actress playing her younger self, Margaret Qualley.
“We created a real sense of safety,” Moore said. “Even when we weren’t in scenes together, we were often together on the set — there was comfort in knowing we had each other.”
Despite this comfort on set, Moore knew that on screen, her performance would have to reflect a deep pain that tapped into experiences she went through herself.
“It’s not a glamour role,” she said. “I knew going in that I had to be vulnerable and raw.”
For many, the vulnerability Moore displays would be an uncomfortable challenge, but from Qualley’s perspective, her co-star has never shied away from a difficult task.
“She’s been doing things like this her whole career,” Qualley said. “But to me, ’GI Jane’ is just the ultimate.”
Moore added that shaving her head and going through military training for her “GI Jane” performance “certainly was not appreciated,” even though she thinks now the film “really holds up.” Fargeat agrees, as well, that Moore’s career and efforts don’t receive the praise they deserve and that she herself didn’t understand the struggles Moore had faced until reading her 2019 memoir “Inside Out.”
“She was very feminist and ahead of her time and made really bold choices,” the French filmmaker said. “It was a whole side of her personality that I didn’t know. She has that iconic status, but also this toughness, this risky state of mind.”
In taking on this role in “The Substance,” Moore knew that, despite differing from Elisabeth in many ways, there were “pieces of her” she was able to connect to, and embracing the character “would lead to something greater” for herself.
“I walked away from it with a certain sense of liberation within myself,” said Moore to The Independent. “I knew there were going to be shots that highlighted my flaws, but those allowed me to find acceptance and appreciation in myself. It was about surrendering. I had to let go of any parts of me that value perfection.”
Mubi has released “The Substance” in theaters now and will stream it on their platform at a later date.
