Margaret Qualley has admitted she’s not fazed if people want to brand her a “nepo baby”.
The star of The Substance and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is part of a new generation of Hollywood stars who have one or more parents already in showbusiness, which has led to a widespread debate about industry nepotism.
During a recent interview on the podcast Happy Sad Confused, host Josh Horowitz referred to Margaret – whose mother is fellow performer Andie MacDowell – as a “second-generation actor”.
“That’s a nice way of putting it!” she responded with a laugh, before insisting: “You can call me a nepo baby.”
Josh then referred to Margaret as being part of the group that are “very much aware” of the expectations put on them because of their famous parents.
Asked about whether she feels she’s been able to shake that off and make a name for herself as a star in her own right, the Golden Globe nominee admitted: “I’m not sure. I think I just so desperately want to be good and want to deserve to be in the room that I’m in.
“I want to work my ass off, I love the feeling of working really hard, I love the feeling of exhaustion from good, hard work.”
She continued: “There’s something so pure about being able to put your heart into something, your mind into something, your body into something. And really go for it.
“And so I guess that I’ve always had such a big drive to be able to do that, and I am really hard on myself, that I always feel like I’m harder on myself than anyone else in the room. And so it kind of doesn’t matter.”
Since the release of The Substance last year – for which she is currently among the favourites to land an Oscar nomination – Margaret has been upfront about the physical toll her performance in the graphic body horror took upon her.
This included having to learn intense choreography for the role of Sue, as well as donning elaborate prosthetics for hours at a time while shooting the film’s bloody conclusion.