Demi Moore has now won a Golden Globe for the first time. For her role in “The Substance”, Moore took up the award for the best female actor in a musical or comedy on Sunday.
Coralie Fargeat’s darkly satirical short, which inspired memes, discussions, and innumerable Halloween costumes, has nailed something current about women, ageing, and media.
Moore portrays Elisabeth Sparkle in the movie, an actress who became a fitness expert on television before being abruptly fired for being too elderly. To construct a younger, more ideal version of herself, she uses an illegal narcotic known only as “the substance” (played by Margaret Qualley). Before long, Elisabeth and her doppelganger are engaged in a struggle for dominance over their lives.
Demi Moore’s Golden Globes Speech
“I wasn’t expecting that. I’m just in shock right now,” Moore said when she took the stage. “I’ve been doing this a long time, like over 45 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever won anything as an actor, and I’m just so humbled and so grateful.”
Moore, 62, remembered a conversation she had with a film director approximately thirty years ago in which the producer referred to her as a “popcorn actress.”
“30 years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a popcorn actress.’ And at that time, I made that to mean that this wasn’t something that I was allowed to have. That I could do successful movies, that made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged. And I bought into it, and I believed that”.
“At that time, I made that mean that this wasn’t something that I was allowed to have,” she said of her win. “And I bought in, and I believed that, and that corroded me over time to the point where I thought a few years ago that maybe this was it. Maybe I was complete; maybe I’d done what I was supposed to do.”
“And that corroded me over time to the point where I thought a few years ago that maybe this was it,” she further continued.
“Maybe I was complete. Maybe I’ve done what I was supposed to do. And as I was at kind of a low point, I had this magical, bold, courageous, out-of-the-box, absolutely bonkers script come across my desk called ‘The Substance,’ and the universe told me that you’re not done.”
She claimed that during “this low point” in her life, the idea for “The Substance” struck her.
“All the people who stood by me, especially the people who believed in me when I hadn’t believed in myself.” Moore continued, thanking Fargeat, Qualley, her manager publicist, and agents.
“And I’ll just leave you with one thing,” Moore said, “that I think this movie is imparting. In those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough, we’re pretty enough, we’re skinny enough, we’re successful enough, or just not enough. I had a woman say to me, ‘Just know you will never be enough, but you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.’ And so today, I celebrate this as a marker of my wholeness and of the love that is driving me and for the gift of doing something I love and being reminded that I do belong. Thank you so much”.
Sebastian Stan, who won his first award for best actor in a motion picture musical or comedy for his role in A Different Man, was among the first-time winners, led by Moore.
Award presenter Kerry Washington joked, “Good luck to the next person,” as the crowd erupted in thunderous ovation for Moore’s stirring address.
