“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.”
That’s how Demi Moore began her speech upon winning Best Female Actor in a Comedy or Musical at last Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards ceremony. The 62-year-old actress won for her performance in The Substance, a dark satire about the perils of aging in a world obsessed with youth and beauty.
“I really wasn’t expecting that. I’m just in shock right now,” the actress remarked as she took to the stage, looking resplendent in a gold strapless mermaid dress from Giorgio Armani Prive.
With her trophy in hand, she continued, “Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a popcorn actress, and at that time, I made that mean that this wasn’t something that I was allowed to have. That I could do movies that were successful, that made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged.”
Having starred in a string of box office hits including Ghost, A Few Good Men, and Indecent Proposal, Moore became one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars in the 90’s. But the same feat apparently pigeonholed her into a category that she was unable to escape… until now.
“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’ve done what I was supposed to do,” she said.
Then, at this “low point” of her life, the script for The Substance came to her.
“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,” Moore said of the script, written by Coralie Fargeat who also directed the film.
Moore closed her speech with a statement that echoed the message that the movie is imparting.
“In those moments, when we don’t think we’re smart enough, or pretty enough, or skinny enough, or successful enough, or basically 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.”