Demi Moore Shows Off Her Substantial Substance in Post Screening Q&A at SBIFF

It doesn’t take a therapist to see why Demi Moore would be attracted to the challenges of a role like Elizabeth Sparkle, the character she plays in writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s Best Picture nominee The Substance. 

A roller coaster ride of goo and gore, The Substance is also a brilliantly original satire of toxic beauty culture, where Moore (who at 62 years old is famously known for having her own magical fountain of youth) plays Elizabeth,  a 50-year-old star who transforms into Sue, a gorgeous 20-something played by Margaret Qualley, thanks to a youth miracle drug called “the substance.” 

In addition to the Academy’s top Best Picture honor for the film, Moore was nominated for Best Actress, Fargeat was nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay, and the film was nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. 

The Substance is not just shockingly good but shockingly intense, which Moore herself acknowledged with some humorous concern by greeting the large crowd at the post-screening Q&A at the Arlington with, “Did everyone just see the film? How are you doing?” 

SBIFF Executive Director and interviewer Roger Durling laughed and added, “We only had a 1 percent walk out” (which if true, would be pretty amazing considering just how much horror was onscreen). 

Durling asked about the fear of not measuring up to expectations, a theme of the film. 

“When I read the script, I thought, wow, this is such a unique way to be delving into the subject matter,” said Moore. “But the part that resonated deepest was really that violence that we can have against ourselves, which is exactly what you just said, that judgment, that constant compare and despair. And I felt like that was something that I hadn’t ever really seen explored, or a deep dive into what I think is just something that is so human, something that we all relate to,” shared Moore. 

Speaking of her director, she said, “Her style of storytelling is very visual and symbolic.” Many of Moore’s key scenes were looking at herself in the mirror in a very vulnerable way, about which she said, “I needed, in a sense, to be in a dialogue with myself.” 

She continued, “The more grounded and real I could make it, the real she [the character Elizabeth] would be. The truth is there is nothing that anyone can do to us that is worse than what we can do to ourselves.”

Moore admitted that when she read the script, she thought, “this could be amazing or it could be a f@#king disaster,” a similar feeling she said she had when she read the script for what eventually became the mega-hit movie Ghost. 

Of the many compliments and critical acclaim Moore has received for the role in The Substance, she said, “We can only be as good as the opportunities we’re given.”