Demi Moore caused a sensation this evening on the set of “It's yours” on France 5. The actress was the guest on the show to promote her new film “The Substance”. But above all, the interview allowed Demi Moore to look back on this pivotal time in her career, when she became the highest paid woman in Hollywood.
The highest paid actress in Hollywood
In the 90s, Demi Moore, then at the top, accepted the role that would change her life and career: Striptease. She plays a mother ready to do anything to regain custody of her daughter. The actress, then in a relationship with the other star, Bruce Willis, then became the highest paid woman in Hollywood. With a contract worth $12.5 million, she attracts criticism, as Mohamed Bouhafsi points out: “which the journalists do not fail to reproach you by nicknamed you demi-more Which could be translated into French as demi-always-plus. While you have quite simply conquered and above all demanded equal pay”
Demi Moore then agrees to return to this period of her life: “Yeah, it wasn't something… In fact, it was a bit… I got a bit of a punitive response. This is what I got for becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood.” she laments.
“They wanted to shame me and diminish me”
Demi Moore emphasizes that these attacks were not personal, but rather a reflection of a society which struggled to accept that a woman could access such recognition and such financial power in Hollywood.
“But I don't think, again, it was personal or functional. I think it was a collective part of giving so much power to a woman.” she analyzes. “Because they wanted to shame me. And diminish myself. But I don't think, again, it was personal or functional.”.
Demi Moore's new feminist role
If Demi Moore, who recently became a grandmother, returned to this pivotal period of her career, it is also to promote her new film.The Substance”directed by Frenchwoman Coralie Fargeat. A fantastic and violent film in which she plays a fitness TV presenter, Elisabeth Sparkle, whose age puts her career in jeopardy.
Invited to test a “substance“supposed to allow her to perfectly improve her physique, Elisabeth actually sees a younger double of herself born from her body, named Sue. Under this new identity, she becomes the darling of the TV channel.
But not always respecting the very strict dosage of the product, and becoming dependent on it, Elisabeth's life turns into a nightmare, in a gory and violent film, but also with a good dose of scathing humor.
With “The Substance”Coralie Fargeat proves that she is the worthy heir of Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, master of “body horror”. The film indeed places the subject of the body at the heart of its plot, in a breathtaking narrative progression.
