Demi Moore accepted her Golden Globe for The Substance, about an aging actress who goes to terrifying lengths to retain her youth, by revealing a dispiriting story about being told she would never be a prestige performer. Even more head-scratching: This happened when she was one of Hollywood’s most in-demand stars.
Her victory in the category for best female actor in a musical or comedy was an upset, and even Moore said she was taken aback. “I really wasn’t expecting that,” she said. “I’m just in shock right now. 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.”
Then she launched into a story from the 1990s, when she was one of the industry’s biggest box office draws with films like Ghost (1990), Indecent Proposal (1993), and Striptease (1996), which earned her the biggest payday for an actress in history at that point. Nonetheless, she was given some advice that apparently still stings.
“Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a ‘popcorn actress.’ At that time, I made that mean that this wasn’t something I was allowed to have,” Moore said, clutching her trophy. “I could do movies that were successful, that made a lot of money, but I couldn’t be acknowledged. I bought in, and I believed that.”
Despite her status as an industry power player, she said it still got into her head and stayed there. “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.”
While semiretired, and rarely appearing onscreen, she said The Substance became a lifeline that pulled her out of it. “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, ‘You’re not done.’”
She thanked writer-director Coralie Fargeat for trusting her with the lead role in the horror tale, and “all of the people who stood by me, especially the people who believed in me when I haven’t believed in myself.”
“I’ll just leave you with one thing that I think this movie is imparting,” Moore concluded. “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.’”
She said the award was “a reminder that I do belong.”
Since Golden Globe speeches can be powerful forces as awards season plays out, any future wins by Moore should be less of a surprise.
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