Demi Moore on the Cover of Elle

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Once the highest-paid actress in Hollywood, the iconic superstar graces the cover of Elle Magazine’s December-January issue.

Demi Moore Talks Baring It All Onscreen in Her Latest Movie https://t.co/7lPpV2WzIu
- ELLE Magazine (US) (@ELLEmagazine) November 14, 2024


TRIGGER WARNING: ED

On baring it all for her new movie, ‘The Substance’

She could have asked for it to be edited differently, but as much as she dislikes it-and really, show me a woman who would enjoy seeing such a shot of her derrière on the big screen-“I didn’t ask for any adjustments because I knew it was in service of something that was more important than me,” Moore says. “It felt like any hardship, any exposure of my own insecurities, would be worth it if I was part of bringing forward the conversation.” “There was an incredibly liberating aspect to stepping into this really vulnerable, exposed place emotionally and physically,” Moore tells me, her micro Chihuahua, Pilaf, napping peacefully beside her on a sofa in her L.A. living room. “The film gave me the opportunity to look at where my ego was kind of running the show, where I was giving up my power, and it pushed me to find a little bit more gentility and acceptance of myself as I am.”

On changing her body for different roles

You could argue Moore’s career has been uniquely intertwined with her body. Moore shot to stardom with steamy roles in Ghost and Indecent Proposal, and famously posed naked at seven months pregnant on the August 1991 cover of Vanity Fair. Striptease made her the highest-paid actress in Hollywood, but because she took her clothes off to portray a sex worker (“the dancing was massively uncomfortable for me,” Moore says), she was criticized for having set women back. So she went in the opposite direction, shaving her head and sculpting her body to portray a female soldier in G.I. Jane. “I changed my body multiple times through different roles, and I think I chose those roles, whether it was conscious or not, for the very opportunity to find some peace and self-love. And when I did find that, it was only by really surrendering and letting go of what the outside was going to look like.”

On developing an eating disorder

“There is a lot of torment I put myself through when I was younger,” Moore says. “The perfect example is when I was told to lose weight multiple times. The producer pulled me aside. It was very embarrassing and humiliating. But that’s just one thing. How I internalized it and how it moved me to a place of such torture and harshness against myself, of real extreme behaviors, and that I placed almost all the value of who I was on my body being a certain way-that’s on me.”

On the awards buzz for her performance in ‘The Substance’

It’s a very new experience. Up until now, I’ve never really been brought into that conversation. So I’m feeling a lot of appreciation, and at the same time keeping myself right-sized, because in truth I didn’t know if this film would work at all. It was conceptually so crazy that I really didn’t know. So I’m in this beautiful place of having let go of any expectations, and so everything that’s been happening just feels like this added gift.

On a life lesson that stuck with her

When I was much younger, I remember speaking to this woman about not feeling good enough. And this woman said to me in a very gentle, loving way, “You will never be good enough. But you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.”

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I thought Demi gave a career-best performance in ‘The Substance.’ She was uninhibited and shocking, and I can’t stop thinking about it! If you’ve seen it, what did you think of the film? Cut for spoilers, please.