Margaret Qualley had to endure claustrophobia and nerves while filming body horror film “The Substance.”
While Qualley is no stranger to playing a “bunch of fucking freaks” like an experimented-on corpse in “Poor Things,” the actress literally had to shed her skin to step into the role of actress Sue in writer/director Coralie Fargeat’s feature.
Qualley told the Los Angeles Times that one scene in particular involving prosthetics led her to have a “panic attack” on set. During one point in the film, Qualley transforms into a character that is a blend of her and Demi Moore’s shared DNA; Qualley donned a prosthetic suit to take on that additional role.
“I was in there, with [Demi’s] face plastered onto my own body,” Qualley said. “I was alone in that thing. I was running into things. It was a torture chamber. The amount of videos I have of me like, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ It was eight days. I know that doesn’t seem like a lot.”
And because of how the prosthetic worked, she couldn’t just step out of the suit when she wanted to ease her nerves.
Qualley added, “We would just go until I had a panic attack. And the tempting thing is you want to peel it off, but of course you can’t do that, because you’ll bring your skin with you.”
And it wasn’t just when Qualley was in prosthetics that she felt the pressure: as the so-called perfect, younger version of Demi Moore’s character Elisabeth Sparkle, Qualley had to maintain an idealized figure during production, plus have choreographed dance moves.
Qualley admitted there was “so much crying” leading up to shooting Sue’s big dance number.
“We’re representing perfect, right?” Qualley said. “And the movie has a pretty inspired message. So I also thought it was important for that perfect to be healthy, even if it’s unrealistic. I’m fortunate that the naked stuff was at the top because throughout the five months my ass was just slowly deflating.”
She continued, “One of the reasons why this movie was exciting for me was because I haven’t really done something head-on like this where the character is superficial and meant to be mega-hot. I’ve played a bunch of fucking freaks, so I consider myself lucky. It’s more of a challenge than I realized, pretending to feel hot when you don’t feel hot. I practiced that dance incessantly, every day, until we shot it because it’s so far outside of the way my body moves. But I really enjoyed pushing myself to figure it out.”
And it turns out, Qualley wouldn’t trade her experience on “The Substance.”
“In a truly, earnestly positive way, finishing the movie did feel like there’s a reason why I signed up to do this — like there was an itch I needed to scratch,” she said. “I feel a certain freedom having endured the experience.”
