Margaret Qualley: a year to recover from filming

In “The Substance”, Margaret Qualley plays a rejuvenated clone, who wants to be an ideal version, of Demi Moore’s character. This January 13, 2025, the 30-year-old American actress revealed in Josh Horowitz’s “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that filming had damaged her skin. Because of the prosthetics she had to wear (see Instagram post below), she had a major acne breakout.

“It took me a year to physically recover from all that,” confided the one who is not afraid to surpass herself for her roles. And so that Josh Horowitz fully understands the extent of the damage, Margaret did not hesitate to share an anecdote with him. “At the end of filming, when they were filming my skirt for the opening credits and there were like palm trees all around and they were doing all these low-angle wide shots, it was just because my face was completely damaged. They could no longer film my face,” she explained.

Margaret still got some positives out of her acne. Indeed, it was useful to him during the filming of another film, “Kinds of Kindness”. In this psychological thriller, she plays four characters, one of whom suffers from acne. “We used my personal acne as makeup,” she said.