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Demi Moore’s Gory Glory

“Grotesque.” “Divisive.” “Exhilarating.” “Bonkers.” “Freakish.” “Batshit.” “Crazy.” When The Substance premiered at Cannes last spring, it sent shockwaves down the Croisette and immediately made Demi Moore the center of attention—again. Throughout her career, the 61-year-old superstar has been a natural-born headline getter, and her starring role in director Coralie Fargeat’s body-horror fantasy signals that she’s not done yet. In it, she plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a fading Hollywood beauty who turns back time with a black-market drug that carries some extremely gnarly side effects. Youth, vanity, desire, relevance—they’re ideas that Demi Moore knows all too well and, as she tells her fellow actor Michelle Yeoh, was dying to tackle.

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TUESDAY 7 AM JULY 16, 2024 L.A.

DEMI MOORE: Hello! I hear you, but I don’t see you.

MICHELLE YEOH: Well, the good news is I see you. Oh my god, your movie is—I think I’m still in shock. I am a huge horror buff, but I didn’t know that The Substance was horror to that extent. It was mind-blowing. How did you do it?

MOORE: Oh my gosh. What can I say? First of all, thank you so much. This is so exciting for me, and I can’t believe you’re a horror buff. I feel like I’m waking up to this whole genre.

YEOH: Oh my god!

MOORE: And this film, just when you think it can’t go any further or get any weirder, it does, and then it does again. I’m so glad you loved it.

YEOH: Oh, I did. The thing I do love—you’re not just dealing with the #MeToo movement or objectification, you’re dealing with self-love or self-loathing and the inability to accept who you are. So you’re always trying to change to be someone else. But a lot of your scenes were mainly on your own, right? That whole scene where you were dressed to go out and you came back in—how many women go through that? “I cannot be seen like I’m being too sexy.” Please tell me your process!

MOORE: What you described is what moved me when I read the script, because it was such a unique way to be exploring this issue of aging, of societal conditioning, of what I also see as the pressure of the male-idealized woman that we as women have bought into. At the core of it, what it’s really about is what we do to ourselves, and I loved that it was illustrated in such a physical way—showing that violence with what we do with our thoughts, how we attack ourselves and distort things. There’s great power in knowing that what we do to ourselves is a choice, and we can make a different choice. And for those who aren’t looking for such a deep message, it’s just entertaining.

YEOH: The message is so evident and that is the beauty of it. Even though, yes, you have a lot of gore. I mean, I almost fell off my chair a couple times when I was watching it. I literally fell backwards, and I’m like, “How the hell did that happen?” But Demi, you as Elisabeth Sparkle, she’s only 50, and it’s not something that happens overnight. It’s a whole process from when you start your career, when you’re young. And yes, it’s a natural progression that all of us have to accept, and I think the beauty of this movie is about self-acceptance.

MOORE: You got it.

YEOH: But that journey into it, we faced it because we’re both—I’m a little older than you, so I’m the elder here.

MOORE: [Laughs] Not by much, Michelle, not by much.

YEOH: [Laughs] We’ve both faced it along the way, but what I really admire about you is that you’ve always put family first. It wasn’t so much, “Oh, I’m older, so I have less choices.” It’s about you making certain choices. So for you to do a movie that is so much about what we face—and you go through such a scary process, because for example, when I saw the nudity of you two gorgeous actresses, you don’t feel like, oh god, Coralie [Fargeat, the director] is trying to exploit their bodies. Because it’s out there, for the world to see you in your full glory, right?

MOORE: Yes, right.

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