Brut sat down with Margaret Qualley and Demi Moore, stars of film "The Substance," to talk about aging, beauty in the modern world, and their connection to their characters.
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00:00I mean, I can't think of, you know, like certainly it's, there's nothing that I've experienced
00:10that's that overt.
00:12And I think what's, you know, the setting of it being in the entertainment industry,
00:16it being, you know, actresses is definitely, I think, really just sets an immediate understanding
00:23of what the stakes are.
00:25But I really think what's interesting is that this is, this could be any field in any world
00:30and not even, not even exclusive to women's experience.
00:35I think we're kind of like coming face to face with what is kind of been a collective
00:42consciousness that's been limited about our perspective on women's value and their, and
00:50or their lack of as they age and how we've kind of all bought into a certain thing.
00:56And so this is really, I think, allowing us to not just look at what societal conditioning
01:02is, but what we're, what we do to ourselves.
01:05I mean, I think, I think, look, we are living the change.
01:09And I think so much of that is going to come down to, you know, how we choose to view ourselves.
01:15It's like you talking about your, you know, your step sister, did you say?
01:19And where, like, it's also, it's like feeling like, you know, it's also when we step out
01:25of the shadows and embrace the shadow sides, the things that we don't love, which for me
01:30was part of my joy in also working with Margaret is seeing already how much more embodied and
01:36comfortable you are in your own skin, how less apologetic versus thinking back to where
01:43I started, where it felt like it was a constant apology for not being a certain way.
01:50I'm super inspired by, by the youth.
01:53Yeah.
01:54Like, I, I think it kind of just keeps evolving.
01:59Yeah.
02:00It's, it's like progress, not perfection.
02:04We're getting there.
02:05And I mean, even like a some, but like, even reading this script, I think there's a disconnect
02:09between my experience and the experience of Coralie, which is like, I think I like,
02:16you know, I relate to a degree.
02:18I see it.
02:19I understand why it's important.
02:20And it's also not my experience, which I think you probably relate to too, you know, like
02:26I'm playing a super vain, superficial character that like is representing perfect, but I don't
02:32know that in my mind it works like that.
02:35You know what I mean?
02:37Yeah.
02:39But I think people can, I, but I think people do identify.
02:42Totally.
02:43And I, and I do too.
02:44Yeah.
02:45We can, because we see it, not, we can see it around us, not necessarily of our own experience.
02:50And you feel it coming up or whatever.
02:52Yeah.
02:53What?
02:54I did not relate to my character very much, luckily, I hope I'm a better person, think
03:03I am.
03:05But I related to her character a lot.
03:08I think that's kind of the point.
03:10I think we all relate to, to me as character and that's that.
03:19I mean, it was, it was just such a unique, dynamic, unusual, out of the box, you know,
03:29script and characters that, I mean, it's certainly like, I felt like, like something I'd, I'd
03:34never seen.
03:36And yet at the same time, so relatable, like, but on every aspect.
03:43Same.
03:45I was just like, I was just very wowed by the world of the movie and, um, talking about
03:53themes that I think everybody can relate to and in a really kind of elegant, precise way.
03:58And then I was super excited once I found out that Demi was going to be playing Elizabeth
04:03because I've been a fan of hers for a long time.
04:05And I was really excited to work with her.
04:07Same, same, same.
04:08You know, actually, it's funny that to me, it's kind of like wild timing, the way that
04:12the universe works, because we all just had the brat summer, right?
04:17With Charlie XCX.
04:19And I was listening to Charlie as my Sue inspo, because she has like a lot of good kind of
04:25like pump it up girl songs.
04:27Well, I didn't mean to say pump it up, but that was probably just like, yeah, slip in
04:31my head.
04:32But, you know, to me, I got that like kind of Sue energy from Charlie's old music.
04:41So that's, that's where my head was.
04:45Mine was more silence.
04:50It was like a world that was absent.
04:53Everything was void.
04:54Everything, really, it was like it needed to be like, like more nothing.
04:59Yeah, that makes sense.
05:02Which is not, which isn't always the case, actually, like that I never thought about
05:05it till just now.
05:06Like, it felt like, right, yep.