Demi Moore does not allow age to stop her from reaching new heights of personal and professional success.
“I really try to be as present in the moment as possible, and I feel an excitement about the possibilities that we are defining a new – I don’t want to say generation – but we are the future for women,” Moore, 61, said on the Monday, Sept. 9 episode. Today“And I think about my daughters and I don’t want them to ever think that it’s over. For me, this is the most exciting time of my life. It is.”
Moore – the daughters share Rumer36, Explore33, and Tallulah30, with her ex-husband Bruce Willis — continued: “My kids are grown. I have the most independence and autonomy to really redefine where I want to go. I don’t know what that looks like or what that is, but I’m just happy to live in it.”
The perception and treatment of aging women in society is the subject of Moore’s upcoming body horror film. The substancewhich hits theaters on September 18. She plays Elisabeth Sparkle, an actress who is fired from her TV fitness show because she is too old. Hoping to regain her youth, she takes a black market drug called The Substance to create a younger, alternate version of herself, played by Margaret QualleyThings take a dangerous turn as the two women fight for time in the spotlight.
“It’s a bit like The Picture of Dorian Gray meets Death suits her well with a Jane Fonda Training,” said Moore Savannah Guthrie And Hoda Kotb of the film. “But I think it’s really a very unique way of really dealing with what I think is a very relevant issue, which is aging, the perception, the collective consciousness that the value of women decreases as they get older, which is just not true. But in this case, it kind of represents some of the old ideals.”
The role pushed Moore out of her physical and emotional “comfort zone,” she said. “The message that was so powerful for me is not what’s happening in the circumstances around (her), but the violence we do to ourselves. And that’s what I find really powerful about it.”
Moore said she could identify with her character’s motivation in the film, as she herself has struggled with body image in the past. “I placed a lot of importance on how my body looked because that was a crucial sign of whether I belonged or not, whether I was going to be successful or not, all of those things,” she explained.
Dealing with aging is where the similarities between Moore and Elisabeth end. “This is a woman who only has her career, only what she has built through her work. She has no family. And so often we put too much emphasis on external features,” she explained. “And I think what this is really saying too is, ‘Where is our true priority? Where is our true love? Where does our true joy come from?’ And that can only come from that self-love, self-acceptance.”
In addition to praise and Oscar hype for her performance in The substanceMoore is also an enthusiastic first-time grandmother. Rumer welcomed her daughter Louetta in April 2023 with her ex-boyfriend Derek Richard Thomas.
“I love it,” Moore said of her role as grandparent. “She’s the sweetest. Rumer just sent me a photo of her with spaghetti on her head.”