Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley’s new body horror thriller The Substance is getting high praise as it premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. The film directed by Coralie Fargeat has made its Rotten Tomatoes debut with early seven reviews claiming a 100% score, and now standing at 92% when this article was published. In the new movie, the 61-year-old actress has her first full-frontal n-de scenes of her long career.
Demi Moore discussed playing an aging actress in the film and going for nude scenes during a press conference. Moore’s character, Elizabeth Sparkle, takes a “black market,” “cell-replicating substance” to become a “younger, better version of herself,” played by Margaret Qualley, according to IMDb.
Demi Moore on the Rawness and Vulnerability of N-de Scenes in The Substance
The Substance. Image Credit: Mubi/Metropolitan Filmexport
Demi Moore is getting ready for a big comeback with The Substance, her first film role in more than two years. The Substance, directed by Coralie Fargeat, is described as a body horror film with a feminist angle, though a full trailer is yet to be out. The movie, which explores themes of toxic masculinity and beauty standards, is centered around a drug known as the Substance that claims to make people into “better versions” of themselves.
She bares all in the feminist body horror The Substance, with multiple sequences showing her completely n-de. The actor talked about her “vulnerable experience” at the film’s press conference at the Cannes Film Festival.
“Going into it, it was really spelled out — the level of vulnerability and rawness that was really required to tell the story,” Moore said. “And it was a very vulnerable experience and just required a lot of sensitivity and a lot of conversation about what we were trying to accomplish.”
The actor from Ghost acknowledged that a smooth experience was largely due to her co-star and Maid actor Margaret Qualley, 29. “I had someone who was a great partner who I felt very safe with. We obviously were quite close – naked – and we also got a lot of levity in those moments at how absurd those certain situations were,” she said.
“But ultimately, it’s just about really directing your communication and mutual trust.”
Moore has acted in nude scenes in a number of her previous roles, most notably in Striptease (1996) and The Scarlet Letter (1995). However, those scenes were more subdued than the ones in The Substance, as Moore was not required to entirely undress for them.
Demi Moore Could Finally Win an Oscar for The Substance
At its Cannes premiere on May 19, The Substance received an incredible 11-minute standing ovation, the longest of any film to open at the festival. The brand-new horror movie has received excellent reviews and the majority of critics already predict that Moore will take home the Cannes Best Actress award. But because of Moore’s outstanding performance, a lot of people believe that The Substance will finally bring Demi Moore a Best Actress Oscar next year.
Dennis Quaid plays Harvey, Elizabeth’s producer, in The Substance alongside Moore and Qualley. Quaid dedicated his performance in the film to his late friend, Goodfellas star Ray Liotta, who passed away in May 2022.
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Although a lot of people made connections between the plot of the movie and Moore’s personal experiences as an older actress in a youth-obsessed Hollywood, the actor claimed that The Substance is more about mocking “the male perspective of the ideal woman” than it is about her own experiences.
Universal was supposed to release The Substance, which was produced by Working Title. Rather, it will be released in the United States via Mubi, which will be the biggest theatrical release for the art house streamer to date.
