Demi Moore on “The Substance” and resistance against a toxic beauty culture

Demi Moore has lived in her home since 2005. “It's gone through some interesting changes,” she said. “It was a house with three kids, and now it's just me and my silly pack of dogs.”

It's hard to imagine Moore as a grandmother living alone, but here she is, doing what some say is the best work of her career. Her latest film, “The Substance,” is about an aging TV star who finds an eerie-seeming magic potion that can give her a younger, more perfect version of herself – but at a terrible price.

“I put so much pressure on myself,” she said, speaking about the importance she placed on her attractiveness in the past. “And I experienced being told to lose weight. And while all of that may have been embarrassing and humiliating, that was what I was doing to myself.”

To watch a trailer for “The Substance,” click on the video player below:

For example, when she was filming Indecent Proposal in 1993, she cycled every day from her home in Malibu to Paramount Studios in Hollywood: about 30 miles each way.

And she was breastfeeding a baby at the time: “I think she was about five or six months old when we shot that. So I fed her all night, got up in the dark with a sneaker and a headlamp and rode my bike to Paramount, wherever, even to the set. Then I shot a whole day, which is normally 12 hours, and then I started all over again. Just the idea of ​​what I did to my body is so crazy, so ridiculous.”

However, she said that at the time she thought it was what was being asked of her: “Yes. But when you look back, you think, 'Was it really that important?' Probably not! But at the time, it meant everything to me.”

Moore has been in the spotlight since the 1980s – a talented and at the time problematic member of Hollywood’s so-called “Pack of rascals.” On screen, she shone in films such as “St. Elmo's Fire” and “About Last Night.” Off screen, she struggled with self-esteem. “I just have a lot of compassion for what a scared little girl I was, even though I didn't let anyone see that,” she said. “And if I could go back, I would hug her and say, 'It's OK. It's OK.'”

It was OK; Moore became the highest-paid woman in the business and she outpaid other women too. When she was paid a record $12.5 million for the 1996 film Striptease, other women in Hollywood demanded and received higher salaries.

She also raised questions about whether a 40-year-old woman should wear a bikini or how long a woman's hair should be when she reached a certain age after shaving her head for “GI Jane” in 1997.

Now, at 61, her hair is waist-length. “After I shaved my head, I started growing my hair out because I thought you could have long hair if you wanted to,” Moore said. “Who says that's not OK? And I've heard it many times. If I didn't think I was happy with the way I looked, I would cut it off.”

And in “The Substance” she asks again: Why do we think like that?

In one scene where her character goes on a date, she looks in the mirror, puts on makeup, and then deliberately smears it. She said the scene was difficult to shoot. “Emotionally, it's this idea that many of us have experienced, where we try to make something better. And then we make it worse and worse,” she said. “For me, that's one of the most heartbreaking moments in the whole movie. And it took at least 15 takes each time. And by the end, my face was sore.”

What happens to her after a day like that? “You fall apart. You just fall into your bed!” she laughed.

Smith asked, “What do you personally think today when you look in the mirror?”

“Um, it fluctuates,” Moore said. “Some days I look and think: Wow. That's pretty good. And some days I catch myself over-analyzing and hyper-focusing on things I don't like. The difference is that now I can catch myself. I can say: Yes, I don't like this saggy skin. But you know, it is what it is. So I'm going to make the best of what is, rather than chasing what isn't.“

Smith asked, “Give me an example of that. Maybe you were pursuing something where you lost something in retrospect?”

“I used to think: Oh, my face is so, oh, so, chubby. I have no rough edges. I have nothing. And then you think: Yes, but now it's kind of relaxed! I wouldn't mind having some of that roundness back in the right places!”

Moore has three adult children with her ex-husband Bruce Willis. who now lives with dementiaShe says when she's in town, she tries to visit him every week. “The most important thing is to meet him where he is and not get attached to who he was and what he was like. Because that just puts you in a situation of loss instead of being in the present, meeting him where he is, and finding the joy and love that just has everything that he is.”

It seems Demi Moore has made peace with the things beyond her control – a wisdom and freedom that comes naturally to us, if we are lucky, in a long and interesting life.

“I think I'm at a different point in my life than I've ever been,” she said. “I'm more autonomous than I've ever been. My kids are grown. I'm more independent than I've ever been. So I try to focus on what really brings me joy. I don't like to project and say, 'This is where I want to be,' because I don't know. I don't know where I'm going to be. But I know it's an opportunity for me to actually have a good time!”

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Story produced by John D'Amelio. Editor: Lauren Barnello.