Demi Moore’s Powerful Words
“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.’
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.”
“I’m just in shock right now,” she said. “I’ve been doing this a long time, like over 45 years, and this is the first time I’ve won anything as an actor.”
Demi Moore’s career has been a spectacular one, but no matter how much you do it’ll never be enough. She started her career out as a model before transitioning to an actor in the 1980s. In 1991 she got her big shot with Patrick Swayze in Ghost doing sensual pottery together, a scene so iconic that every potter has to endure jokes about it forever now. For this she earned a Golden Globe nomination and the Saturn Award for Best Actress. These would be the last accolades she would see for a while, despite being in a row of massive box office hits through the early 90s leading to her becoming the highest paid actress in the world.
In 1996 she starred in Striptease being the only high profile actress willing to get her kit off for the film. Alongside the release of The Juror both were widely panned and lead to a slump in her career. Both films earned her Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Actress.
In her award acceptance speech she reflected on this career.
“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 [award] 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, 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 would—I’d done what I was supposed to do.”
She would go on to play more iconic roles like in James Cameron’s G.I. Jane, but would largely retreat from having a sustained hollywood presence after this. Her headlines would largely come in the form of drama surrounding sexualisation and objectification, like her Vanity Fair pregnancy and nude covers.
This history, all too familiar to pretty actors and popstars of getting chewed up and spat out by the industry created the perfect meta narrative captured by The Substance. The film follows an older actor much like Demi herself, and the struggles of surviving in an industry that thrives on youth and beauty.
“I changed my body multiple times through different roles, and I think I chose those roles, whether it was conscious or not, for the very opportunity to find some peace and self-love,’ she said. ‘And when I did find that, it was only by really surrendering and letting go of what the outside was going to look like.” She told ELLE US.
“The more I appreciate the lines in the corner of my eyes—the more I can find beauty in the life that I’ve lived—the more my life has beauty.”
