The Substance director Coralie Fargeat calls on Oscars to give horror chance to 'compete at same level as everything else'

'The Substance' director Coralie Fargeat has called on the Academy Awards to give horror movies the chance to "compete at the same level as everything else."

After leading star Demi Moore took home the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for her portrayal of Elisabeth Sparkle in the 2024 body horror at the weekend, the filmmaker has urged the Oscars, which rarely honours the genre, to ensure "every movie is considered cinema" ahead of next week’s nominations.

She told IndieWire: “I don’t see horror films as any different from other movies. They are so political. They are such a great way to tell so many things in a very rude way, and in a very indelicate way.

“To me, they should compete at the same level as everything else. I learned to accept who I was as a filmmaker, not loving writing dialogue, for instance, but expressing myself in a visual and very visceral way. And that's when you accept who you are, and then the magic can happen. The best thing I wish for the Academy is that there is not this barrier, that every movie is considered as cinema, which I think it is.”

Fargeat recently insisted that film is a “universal language”, regardless of its genre.

She told Deadline: “For me, when I do a film, I don’t think about genre. I do what I love and what I’m passionate about.

“For me, every film is cinema. Every film that transmits something through image and sound is cinema, it’s a universal language, whatever genre it is.

“When I was younger, I was… I don’t know the term in English, but I was not very good at school. I felt I was not good enough. And so now I love the fact that, in the end, I found my way to express myself in a way that is 100 per cent me. To me, that’s the thing. When you’re sincere in doing what you love to do, it’s the best way you can touch the audience and have your voice go out into the world. So, yes, it’s a success for genre, but, most importantly, it’s a victory for sincerity in why you’re doing film.”

Demi plays a TV fitness instructor who signs up for a mysterious medical scheme that promises to create the perfect version of herself in the flick.

And she admitted she "wasn't expecting" to win the top prize after never winning anything during her lengthy career and being dismissed as a "popcorn actress" 30 years ago.

She said on stage at The Beverly Hilton on Sunday (05.01.25): “Oh wow. I really wasn’t expecting that. I’m just in shock right now. I’ve been doing this a long time, like over 45 years and this is the first time I’ve ever won anything as an actor. I'm just so humbled and so grateful.

"30 years ago I had a producer tell me I was a popcorn actress and at that time I made that mean that I wasn’t allowed to have this, that I could do movies that were successful and made a lot of money but that I wouldn’t be acknowledged and I bought in and I believed that, and that corroded me over time, to the point where I thought a few years ago that maybe this was it, maybe I was complete, maybe I've done what I was supposed to do.

"And as I was at kind of a low point, I had this magical, bold, courageous, out of the box, absolutely bonkers script come across my desk called 'The Substance', and the universe told me that you're not done."