Demi Moore won the Golden Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy on Sunday for playing a fading star who goes to extreme lengths to regain her youth in the body horror film “The Substance.” The role has been viewed as a major comeback for the actress, who was best known for her work in the 1980s and ’90s and who was last nominated in the same category in 1991 for “Ghost.” (In classic Globes fashion, it’s debatable whether either “Ghost” or “The Substance” belongs in the comedy race.)
Moore has described “The Substance,” directed by Coralie Fargeat, as being about “the violence we have against ourselves” as women. In the film her character, Elisabeth Sparkle, takes a drug that births a younger, sexier version of herself (Margaret Qualley) out of her spine. They have to switch back and forth between bodies, but neither of them respects the balance, and the results ultimately prove disgusting.
In her speech on Sunday night, she said:
“One thing that I think this movie is imparting is 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. Thank you so much.”
