This article contains spoilers for The Substance.
Demi Moore has revealed that one of The Substance’s most memorable sequences ended up looking very different on screen to how it came across in the script.
The Ghost star has received a wave of praise for her performance as Elisabeth Sparkle in Coralie Fargeat’s body horror, for which she is now in the running for her first Oscar.
For those who still haven’t seen The Substance, the gruesome film sees Demi’s character taking a mysterious drug that creates a younger duplicate of herself, with the two versions swapping places every week in order to “respect the balance”.
As the film progresses, the “balance” is not respected, though, and as a result, Demi is seen aging at an accelerated rate, with her character lambasting her alternate from home while watching her in a TV interview.
Speaking to TheWrap about the scene, Demi admitted: “It wasn’t written necessarily as comedic. That kind of just evolved, adding that stuff in, which made that a lot of fun for me.
“I loved the sabotaging that was going on because that is also what we do to ourselves: Her late-night gorging and then waking up, even though it was in the younger body, and going, ‘Oh, what the f— did I do?’.”
She added: “Coralie had very, very locked ideas of what she wanted. And it was almost a little constricting, but for some reason in that scene, because it was so chaotic, throwing the eggs [at the TV] just came out of the natural frustration of seeing Sue on TV.”
Both Demi and Margaret Qualley have been open about the physical and emotional toll that making The Substance had on them, as the demanding shoot included fight sequences, full nudity and the heavy use of prosthetics.
However, despite its graphic content, the Golden Globe winner previously named a rather surprising sequence as The Substance’s “most violent” moment.
The Substance is now streaming on Mubi.