Demi Moore: "There is nothing worse than what I have done to myself"

Demi Moore is the star of the body horror satire The substance, one of the bloodiest and boldest films ever nominated for an Oscar. On screen, Moore, 62, dissolves and mutates in chilling ways, and does so naked and in extreme close-ups. And she couldn't be more pleased. "The role required me to wrestle with my own insecurity and ego," the actress explains. "I was being asked to share things I didn't necessarily want people to see."

Moore speaks via video call. She is dressed in casual black, sitting on the couch in her office and wearing large glasses. Filming in that discomfort was "a gift, a positive thing, a blessing, however you want to put it," she continues. "Once you've put it all out there, what's left? There's nothing to hide. Being able to let go was a liberation for me." The night after the interview, she won best actress at the Critics Choice Awards.

"It was about time that she got that professional and cultural recognition," says Ryan Murphy, the showrunnerand friend who convinced her to work with him in Feud: Capote vs. the swans last year. Murphy says the actress has the beauty and aura of an old-school movie star, with the necessary professional discipline but the flexibility of a seeker: "She's up for anything. She's a pioneer. We all talk about what she's done for the business and for other women," he says. "She's one of the most emotionally intelligent people you'll ever meet. Whenever I have an emotional dilemma or need advice, I don't go to my psychiatrist; I go to her."

Oscar Favorite

With The substance, Moore is also the favorite to win the Best Actress Oscar for playing Elisabeth Sparkle, an A-list star turned TV exercise instructor who is cruelly ostracized by the Hollywood sin of existing past the age of fifty. The desperate solution is to inject herself with the mysterious fluid that gives the film its title and give birth – through an open wound in her spine – to a younger version of herself named Sue (Margaret Qualley). They are supposed to swap each other weekly, while the other is waiting in a vegetative state. But Elisabeth loses the battle for popularity in grotesque fashion.

In a way, The substance transcends genre: Moore describes the project as a cross between the Oscar Wilde classic The Portrait of Dorian Gray, the 1992 black comedy Death suits you so well and a Jane Fonda exercise video. It is also up for best picture, with French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat nominated for directing and screenwriting.

The film has sparked debate for its unsubtle scenes. But Moore’s singular performance – which has been inspired by her real-life past as a sex symbol, whose figure was both revered and punished – is more than just metaphor. It is fascinatingly physical and has relatively little dialogue. She rarely appears on screen with her co-star (at least on occasions when both are conscious); and she communicates mostly through close-ups, often looking at her own reflection in the mirror, “which is not really the most comfortable place to be,” Moore says. “We looked for everything that is not right.”

The prosthetics that turn her into a withered creature “were a particular mix of tricks,” she adds. "We had to find the logic and the rules, because it's also a world that doesn't exist. For example, I have a totally aged and degraded body but I can run down the hallway."

She also says that until it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, she wasn't sure if the film would work. It ended up winning the award for best screenplay. And her performance became indelible in an unexpected way. Moore's husky voice is one of her trademarks. "I was struck by how powerful she was in silence," Murphy says.

In an email, Qualley was full of praise for her co-star. "Demi is a magical mix of deep thoughtfulness and the ability to live in the present with courage," the actress says. Every day I learned something; their collaboration was "one of life's great gifts," she adds.

An intense shoot

The production, which took place in France over five and a half months, was also one of the most grueling of Moore's 40-year career, the actress admits. GI Jane, Ridley Scott's 1997 action drama for which Moore toned up her muscles to play a military recruit, "was very physically demanding, but it was pretty straightforward."The substance It was emotionally and physically exhausting every day. Even the simplest scenes," she adds.

This was the leap she was looking for, though, after stepping away from acting on and off over the years. First, shortly after her 1990s heyday, to raise the three daughters she has with Bruce Wis. _LNA~ Something that emerged during this period was the relentlessly successful 2019 autobiography, Inside out. My story. In this book, among many other traumas, she examines the eating disorders and over-exercising she engaged in for years – at one point putting a lock on the fridge – and how she emerged with a much less fractured sense of self.

In order to land the role of The substance It took several meetings with the director (who considered other actresses). At one of these meetings, Moore gave her a copy of her book (written with Ariel Levy, The New Yorker). It was a simple device, a gesture to show how the film's story impacted her. She added: "Not from the site of the wound, but from the place that had actually healed."

Moore wasn't interested in discussing guilt. "Look, women being marginalized at a certain age, especially in the entertainment industry, is the least new message of the whole movie," she says.

Nor is she alone in highlighting what she calls "this painful state of comparison and despair." "I think we've all experienced it, because we're human," she says. What drew her to the script was the way these impulses get inside you, violently. "There's nothing another person has done to me worse than what I've done to myself."

There were great chasms between her and Elisabeth, lonely and career-obsessed, she says. But he adds: "Emotionally, the gap wasn't that big. I really understood it."

A long-distance race

Moore escaped – or overcame – a turbulent childhood, becoming independent at 16. By 19 she was already a regular actress in series. She then became known in the Brat Pack films, such as St. Elmo's, meeting point, and in the 1990s became a superstar with hits like Ghost, Some good men and An indecent proposalIn 1996 he earned $12.5 million for Striptease, which made her the highest-paid actress in the world, but did not generate good reviews. She received the nickname Gimme Moore [Give Me More]. Willis, who was earning even more as an action movie hero at the time, didn't face the same kind of ridicule.

Another flashpoint was the cover of Vanity Fair

The idea that she showed her body – in movies or otherwise – with confidence was a misperception that the public had long held, she says now. “I was very uncomfortable with it. I was just trying to find ways to overcome it,” she says.

Moore is now trying to absorb the critical and industry adulation for her new film, which she says is a very special and rewarding one. The substance without making a big deal out of it. “Whatever happens, I just focus on remembering that it shouldn’t mean too much, but not too little either,” she says. “But I can enjoy it.”

She appears to have boosted her Oscar campaign with her win at the Golden Globes last month — she’s been nominated before but never won. In her powerful speech, she singled out a producer who described her as a “popcorn actress,” and also echoed the wise words of a woman she knew decades ago, who told her bluntly that she would never be good enough, but that “you can know the meaning of your worth if you stop measuring yourself.”

“It hit me hard,” Moore says, petting her 1-pound dog, Pilaf, her favorite of her six miniature dogs. “They’re all doing pretty well,” she says. They all sleep in her bed, go on trips. “Literally, everything revolves around these dogs.”

The Golden Globes also revealed a fun fact about Moore: that she is "an avid doll collector" – she has a separate residence for her more than 2,000 antique dolls. She says in her book that she started accumulating toys when her children were young to make up for the fact that she had missed out on her own childhood. Her collection goes beyond figurines. She has learned that it pays to notice imperfections.

"It's not that I like being scared and vulnerable, but I know that it's a valuable state. And that I'm always better off on the other side."