Embodying her character in The Substance challenged Margaret Qualley to take new dangers onscreen.
Qualley, 29, tells PEOPLE the provocative body-horror movie, directed by Coralie Fargeat (Revenge), was “actually outdoors of my consolation zone.”
“I assume, for me, it is one thing I’ve actually by no means completed,” the actress says of enjoying Sue, a youthful model of her costar Demi Moore’s character, Elisabeth Sparkle, who’s hyper-sexualized all through the movie. “I believe I’ve deliberately gone the opposite path all through my profession.”
In The Substance, Qualley takes on the function of Sue, a younger clone of Moore’s getting older actress who’s created by a bootleg serum. The movie options nudity and loads of exhausting to observe moments as the 2 ladies, who share one consciousness, inject themselves with the movie’s titular serum.
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“I knew it was going to be an enormous problem for me,” The Maid star shares of the function. Qualley went on so as to add that the nudity in movie “very a lot serves the aim of this story.”
She continues, “It is a highway you need to go down with a purpose to deliver this to life. And I used to be enthusiastic about that problem.”
Moore, 61, agrees. “It is a part of what makes it attention-grabbing and thrilling, pushing your self, as a result of I believe you in the long run, acquire extra of your self once you face that no matter may be a person’s discomfort, worry. I do not actually take a look at it as worry as a lot as simply vulnerability,” she says.
For Qualley, the movie’s themes have a sure universality to them: Elisabeth and Sue are craving for youth, fame and recognition — all issues which can be prized by society.
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“We have all chosen, highlighted totally different elements of ourselves to current to the world, for the way you need individuals to see you,” the actress notes. “And never that a lot of Sue’s attributes match the invoice for those that I am presenting to the world. Nevertheless it does not imply that they are not someplace within me.”
The Substance, which costars Dennis Quaid, is in theaters now.
