Yahoo Movies Demi Moore caps impressive year with first Oscar nomination aged 62
The actor, 62, has received her first Oscar nomination for her role as Elisabeth Sparkles in Coralie Fargeat's satirical horror film The Substance.
Demi Moore has earned her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her performance in The Substance, capping off a great year for the Hollywood icon.
The nod is a well-earned accolade after her startling performance in The Substance, which follows her character Elisabeth Sparkle — a faded star who decides to take a black market drug in order to rejuvenate her life and career. The drug creates a younger, more perfect version of herself (played by Margaret Qualley) and they are tasked with swapping places every seven days or face the consequences.
It's a shocking and gruesome film hitting back at Hollywood, and indeed society, for seeing women as worthless once they reach a certain age, and it is a story told all the more brilliantly because of Moore's exquisite performance. Director Coralie Fargeat makes her point clear through the gory narrative that viewers will be unable to look away from.
Moore is shortlisted alongside fellow frontrunners Mikey Madison, who is nominated for Anora, and I'm Still Here's Fernanda Torres, as well as Wicked's Cynthia Erivo, Emilia Pérez's Karla Sofía Gascón, and Conclave's Isabella Rossellini.
The question now is what are Moore's chances of winning? Well they are quite high after her success at this year's Golden Globes where she won the same award in the Comedy/Musical category. Her biggest competition is Torres, who also won Best Actress at the Golden Globes for the Drama category. While Madison is a frontrunner her win seems less likely if the trends of awards season thus far are anything to go by.
It's been two years since Moore's last film appearance in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and more than ten years since she was in Margin Call, her last big hit.
At the Golden Globes Moore shared how her win was a big step in her journey of valuing her worth as an actor after being told previously that she was a "popcorn movie actress" and nothing more.
If she were to win it would be a huge achievement for her but it will show that women are wrong to be told that they are past their prime, something that 2023 winner Michelle Yeoh also spoke of when she won the same award for Everything Everywhere All At Once.
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The Substance has been a huge talking point ever since it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024, with the movie, its cast and director all receiving nominations over awards season.
It has been a huge success for Moore, who is also nominated for a Bafta and a Screen Actor's Guild award. Besides the Golden Globes, Moore has won for The Substance at the Indiana Film Journalists Association awards and Kansas City Film Critics Circle awards.
Fargeat, who has been nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars, also won the Best Screenplay award at Cannes Film Festival where the movie first debuted, it was there that it gained a huge amount of buzz and maintained that momentum the closer it got to the film's worldwide release.
The nominations at the Oscars for Moore, Fargeat and the movie are just the icing on the cake of a hugely successful year for the project — though it is a shame that Qualley's performance was snubbed by the Academy Awards. Hopefully there will come a time where she receives an Oscar nomination too.
The Substance is available to watch on Mubi UK.
