Writer/director Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance is a relatively simple movie in some respects, with its high concept plot and limited number of settings, but in addition to being rich with metaphor, it’s a film that demanded a great deal from stars Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. On top of the emotional extremes experienced by the characters, there are also physical extremes, with both actors doing nude scenes and working with complicated body horror prosthetics.
Given these complicated aspects in bringing protagonists Elisabeth Sparkle and Sue to life, Coralie Fargeat maintained very open communication with the stars – and she spoke about that relationship when I interviewed her virtually earlier this month prior to the arrival of The Substance in theaters.
Coralie Fargeat Was Quick To Illustrate Her Vision For The Substance
One of my early questions was about the discussions she had with Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley after they respectively had the chance to read the script, and she first noted her emphasis on her aesthetic vision and heavy use of symbolism. Said the French filmmaker,
It was talking through, first of all, the theme, like what the movie was about – which strongly resonated with both of them for different reasons. But as well, for me to share a lot of what the movie was gonna be beyond the trajectory of the characters, because the movie is really made in such a way that everything is part of telling the story: the locations, the filmmaking, the sound, all the other elements in addition to the performance that they had to team up with to fully express how their character was written.
In The Substance, Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle – a Hollywood star who is unceremoniously fired from her job hosting an aerobics program on her 50th birthday. Her emotional distress leads to a car accident, but her visit to the doctor leads her to learn about the titular procedure: a medical invention that allows her to “birth” a younger, better version of herself. Sue (Margaret Qualley) emerges from Elisabeth’s spine after she takes the special Activator substance, but a failure for the two women to recognize that they are one and respect the balance leads to extreme consequences.
With Coralie Fargeat’s style, there’s only so much that Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley could understand about The Substance by just reading the script, and the writer/director was prepared to illustrate for them what was in her mind:
I spent a lot of time sharing with them many visuals, many designs, music that I was making them listen [to], references, visuals. And explaining also the way I was gonna shoot everything because it was gonna have a huge impact in the way we were gonna shoot, the way we had to work together, and I wanted them to really be prepared and have all the keys to be able to build a performance around that.
How Coralie Fargeat Approached Discussions About Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley’s Nudity And Prosthetics Work In The Substance
I followed up by asking about the physical requirements of bringing Elizabeth and Sue to life, and Coralie Fargeat stressed the magnitude of open discussions with her actors to discuss the most extreme aspects of The Substance. Both roles see Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley performing sans clothing, and in addition to being up front about how the scenes in question would be shot, she also explained their significance in the work’s visual language:
For me, it was super important. For the nudity scenes, I really needed and wanted to spend the time to explain to them all the shots and what they were meaning, because I think that was the most important. So what were the reasons for them to be there, what they needed to convey, how important they were to kind of infuse them with how it, first of all, of course, how it was gonna meet the level of nudity that they would have to agree [to] and be prepared for, and, most importantly, so that they have all the keys again, to kind of then afterwards feel that where their very own emotional layer, which is the beating heart of the scene.
Continuing, Fargeat explained said that there were similar discussions about the film’s prosthetics. Without getting into spoilers, both Elizabeth and Sue go through some terrifying metamorphoses in The Substance, and that required the actors to spend a great deal of time in the makeup chair and mentally process the stories of their characters out of sequence:
It was in fact exactly the same for the prosthetics, like sitting through explaining exactly how long it was going to take to put the prosthetic, how constraining it was gonna be, because sometimes you only have two hours or one hour left to shoot with them. Sometimes you can't shoot in the natural order. So it's more difficult performance-wise, because you have to do things in a totally illogical way performance-wise, because you have technical constraints you can't change.
Both Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley were ultimately very giving as they embraced the glamour and horror of their parts in the context of The Substance’s commentary about age and beauty standards for modern women.
Coralie Fargeat noted that it was essential for everyone to be on the same page early on in the process so that they could all work together to create what the film is in the final cut:
It was extremely important that they had all this with them as early as possible to kind of prepare themselves for navigating all these challenges while being able to give the best of themselves. And so to me that was the greatest and more useful conversation, and I think where we address also what's the DNA of the film, and then we are ready to shape it together.
Also starring Dennis Quaid, The Substance is now playing in theaters nationwide following months of building buzz following its acclaimed premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. It’s the best movie of the year (I gave it five stars in my CinemaBlend review), and if you haven’t seen it yet, make it part of your upcoming evening/weekend plans now.
