Demi Moore is back on the big screen with a totally unexpected new project. The actress will next be seen in The Substance, a body horror thriller co-starring Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid.
The film is French director Coralie Fargeat's second directorial venture, following 2017's Revenge, and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this May, where it won Best Screenplay.
Ahead of its September 20 arrival in theaters, Demi, 61, sat down for a conversation with Michelle Yeoh for Interview Magazine, with the two actresses candidly discussing barriers for women of a certain age in Hollywood, embracing their bodies, and more.
They specifically touched on a pivotal nude scene between Demi and Margaret, 29, in the movie, with Michelle, 62, saying: "I saw the nudity of you two gorgeous actresses, you don't feel like, oh god, Coralie is trying to exploit their bodies. Because it's out there, for the world to see you in your full glory."
Demi emphasized that it was important for her to build a connection with her co-star and the director to achieve that level of comfort and vulnerability for that kind of scene.
"[Coralie] spent a lot of time, way before we were on set, being very clear on the importance of the vulnerability of being in that nude state," she explained. "It was not about it being sexualized, but it was about being raw and exposed in those ways that we are when we're alone and we're not thinking that anybody's looking."
She shared: "I mean there was truly a part, when Margaret and I were on this cold tile floor having to be draped on one another — and it was a very serious scene — that we both just burst out laughing, saying, 'Thank god we like each other, because otherwise this would be really awkward.'"
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Demi continued to gush about the Poor Things star and the bond they had forged, allowing them to bring a level of comfort to filming that made such scenes much easier to handle.
"I felt like I had such a partner in this with Margaret, that we both were exploring this from two different aspects," the Ghost actress explained. "Sometimes it felt like I represented Coralie in her present time, and Margaret was representing this perfected idea that was, in Coralie's experience, held against her."
"And I don't even think it's limited to women. At the core of this, it's so much a reflection of our human condition, because for me, it's not against men."
Demi also spoke about resonating with Michelle for being able to define where women can go with their journeys in the industry, and revealed that she felt like a shift in her place in Hollywood in her 40s.
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"I had done Charlie's Angels, and there was a lot of conversation around this scene in a bikini, and it was all very heightened, a lot of talk about how I looked," she explained.
"And then I found that there didn't seem to be a place for me. I didn't feel like I didn't belong. It's more like I felt that feeling of, I'm not 20, I'm not 30, but I wasn't yet what they perceived as a mother."