Demi Moore’s Golden Globe for her very committed performance in the French film “The Substance” suddenly propelled the megastar of the 90s, never rewarded until then, into an Oscar favorite. But for director Coralie Fargeat, it is far from being a surprise.
“It was so moving to see Demi on that stage,” confides the filmmaker in an interview with AFP on Monday.
Awarded for her interpretation of a former Hollywood glory, addicted to a youth serum, Demi Moore delivered a moving speech on Sunday while receiving the award for best actress in a comedy.
With her love life constantly spied on or even a photo of her naked and pregnant on the front page of Vanity Fair, she had been described as a “popcorn actress”, revealed the 62-year-old star, adding that she had suffered the passing the years with apprehension.
She thanked Coralie Fargeat for “this magical, daring, courageous, off the beaten track, completely crazy script”.
“The Sustance” allowed the public “to see who she is as an actress, and to no longer project the stereotype according to which ‘if you are beautiful, you cannot be a good actress’”, believes the director.
“It’s labeled as a + comeback +. But it was always there,” she insists.
In this horrific and gory fable, Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a former movie star turned fitness show presenter. On her 50th birthday, she is tactlessly sacked by her producer, the archetype of the cads in charge of Hollywood.
– “False promise” –
Desperate, she injects herself with a mysterious serum that allows her insides to generate a dream creature named Sue, played by Margaret Qualley. To avoid disastrous side effects, she must alternate each week between this juvenile alter ego and a return to her real body.
An inexorable descent into hell follows, as the attraction of eternal youth proves irresistible. Catapulted to success, Sue stays awake longer and longer, with terrifying consequences for Elisabeth’s body.
Beyond her filmography full of successes (“Ghost”, “Indecent Proposal”, “Harassment”, etc.), Demi Moore has also in her public life “incarnated this emblematic star” portrayed in “The Substance”, recalls Coralie Fargeat.
“He is someone who has been totally empowered by this dream, this false promise that if you are young and beautiful, you will be happy and successful,” she observes. “And when that disappears, it’s like your whole life disappears.”
The presence of the American in the credits, however, almost remained wishful thinking. The French filmmaker initially doubted that Demi Moore could accept a role involving very crude scenes of nudity and countless gory sequences of decomposing flesh.
But the star’s memoirs, in which she lifts the veil on the misogyny, drug addiction, abuse that marked her life and her divorce scrutinized by the celebrity press, impressed the director.
– “Risk required” –
“When I read her book, I really saw that she was willing to take the level of risk that the film demanded,” she says. “The film is really about women’s bodies. I needed flesh to tell my stories.”
Filming was intense: Demi Moore lost ten pounds and contracted shingles, while Margaret Qualley called the film’s prosthetics “torture” that triggered panic attacks in her.
Coralie Fargeat admits to having been a demanding director, who demanded “a lot of takes”.
Demi Moore “took the risk of following the vision of the film, (…) it’s very, very courageous”, she salutes. “If the lead actress isn’t willing to go that far, the whole film falls apart.”
After this victory at the Golden Globes, “The Substance”, distributed worldwide by the streaming platform MUBI, has a good chance of being nominated for the Oscars, in the categories of best direction, best screenplay and even best film.
Its star is now a favorite for the best actress prize. “From the start, I believed it could happen,” smiles Coralie Fargeat.
“Cinema is a way to create things that people don’t expect,” she concludes. “I am immensely proud to have conceived this role.”
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