Demi Moore ‘took many risks’ – director Coralie Fargeat on making The Substance
It’s the bloody body horror that has made audiences squirm in their seats – and is now making waves throughout awards season.
Demi Moore has already won a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice award for her performance as fading star Elisabeth Sparkle in The Substance – and we’ll find out later on if she gets to add a BAFTA to that list.
The film sees the ’90s icon playing an Oscar winner turned fitness guru struggling to accept she has been unceremoniously dropped from her TV show because she’s too old. She signs up for a secret new medical procedure to create a younger version of herself – without fully understanding what the consequences might be.
Moore stars alongside Margaret Qualley, who plays her younger version. The impact of creating this other “self” – called Sue – on her own body is pretty gruesome.
Margaret Qualley, right, Coralie Fargeat, centre, and Demi Moore at the premier of The Substance during the Toronto International Film Festival. Pic: Cole Burston/The Canadian Press via AP
Director Coralie Fargeat insists her visceral story is more allegory than gory, reflecting the daily violence and sexism women experience throughout life.
“The story was really for me expressing what a life of a woman in our society is in a very genuine way, which is the violence that I think it’s at every level and stage… since we were little girls,” she tells Sky News.
“There are so many pressures that make you feel that if you are not the perfect fantasy or ideal then you don’t deserve to exist. That you have to cut this, hide that, keep it inside, and it is a huge jail that we’ve been raised with and it generates so much violence.”
A few years ago, The Substance might not have been considered traditional awards season fare. But horrors are having a moment, with Heretic and Nosferatu in the running at several ceremonies this year. And the theme of The Substance, a reflection of the harsh realities of ageing for women, especially in Hollywood, is resonating.
The ‘popcorn’ speech
Moore picked up a Golden Globe for her performance – and is a favourite to win an Oscar and possibly a BAFTA, too. Pic: AP
On stage at the Globes, Moore, 62, gave an emotional speech about winning her first major award after 45 years in the business, despite starring in dozens of hit films including Ghost, A Few Good Men and Indecent Proposal. The irony was not lost.
“Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a ‘popcorn’ actress and at that time, I made that mean that this wasn’t something that I was allowed to have, that I could do movies that were successful, that made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged,” she says.
“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. 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.”
Moore thanked French filmmaker Fargeat along with her team, and said the film was a reminder “that I do belong”.
Pic: Mubi
Now, The Substance is nominated for five BAFTAs and five Oscars.
Fargeat says she let out “a huge scream of joy” when she found out – saying the nods are particularly satisfying after she initially struggled to secure funding for the film.
“The space that [women] have is still to be pretty, to smile, to be gentle, polite, and I really wanted to be the opposite.”
‘She took risks’
Fargeat is also BAFTA and Oscar-nominated for best director – but once again, is the only female filmmaker in the running.
“Being the only woman director, I still think it tells a lot of things about all the imbalance, you know, the inequality that there is in society,” she says.
“There are as many women in film school as there are men… when you look at the difference between film school and where we are now, like [the absence of women making] second and third feature films. The difference is drastic.”
She was told to tone the film down “a lot”.
Demi Moore plays a fading Hollywood actress in The Substance. Pic: Mubi
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But Fargeat stuck to her guns and it paid off. Critics have called Moore’s performance the best of her career, with many tipping her to win her first-ever BAFTA and Oscar.
On awards prediction site Gold Derby, Moore is the favourite to win best actress at the Oscars, with more than half of the experts backing her. For the BAFTAs, they have her tied with Anora’s Mikey Madison.
“The truth is that she took many risks,” Fargeat says of Moore. “The script arrived to her at a time where she was in the process of getting the control of who she was back, not letting the outside world define her worth, being empowered for herself to decide who she wanted to be – and the next chapter of her life.”
Video footage has shown the moment singer and actress Ariana Grande was accosted by a fan at a film premiere.
Ms Grande was in Singapore for the debut of Wicked: For Good when the incident unfolded on Thursday.
The video captured the moment the fan scaled the barricade and pushed past photographers towards Ms Grande.
Pic: tacotrvck_vb/X/via REUTERS
He then threw his arms around her, before co-star Cynthia Erivo intervened and security swoops in to stop him.
The man, now identified as Johnson Wen, 26, is reportedly a notorious red carpet crasher.
Wen, who has since been charged with being a public nuisance, goes by the nickname Pyjama Man, and gloated as he shared footage of the intrusion online.
“Dear Ariana Grande, Thank You for letting me Jump on the Yellow Carpet with You,” he wrote on Instagram.
Pic: tacotrvck_vb/X/via REUTERS
In video stories posted to the site beforehand, he was seen at the Universal Studios venue, revealing his intentions.
In one, he said: “I feel like I’m in a dream, that’s my best friend, Ariana Grande, and I’m gonna meet her. I’ve been dreaming about that.”
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The Australian has ambushed several performers on stage, according to reports, including Katy Perry and The Chainsmokers at concerts in Sydney, and The Weeknd in Melbourne.
It has been reported that Wen intends to plead guilty and that he could face a fine of more than £1,000.
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo at the London premiere for Wicked: For Good
Ms Grande took a moment to gather herself in the aftermath of the intrusion, visibly shocked by the incident.
She didn’t address the incident on her own Instagram, but shared some photos with the caption “thank you, Singapore”, adding “we love you”.
The singer battled post-traumatic stress disorder after her 2017 concert in Manchester was bombed, leaving 22 people dead.
She told Vogue in 2018: “It’s hard to talk about because so many people have suffered such severe, tremendous loss. But, yeah, it’s a real thing.
“I know those families and my fans, and everyone there experienced a tremendous amount of it as well. Time is the biggest thing.
“I feel like I shouldn’t even be talking about my own experience – like I shouldn’t even say anything. I don’t think I’ll ever know how to talk about it and not cry.”
In the same interview she also addressed her own anxiety, saying she has “always” had it.
Ms Grande plays Galinda Upland in Wicked: For Good, the character who becomes Glinda the Good Witch. Ms Erivo plays Elphaba, the character who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.
The film is released in UK cinemas on 21 November.
Entertainment
A third of daily music uploads are AI-generated and 97% of people can’t tell the difference, says report
Do you care if the music you’re listening to is artificially generated?
That question – once the realm of science fiction – is becoming increasingly urgent.
An AI-generated country track, Walk My Walk, is currently sitting at number one on the US Billboard chart of digital sales and a new report by streaming platform Deezer has revealed the sheer scale of AI production in the music industry.
Deezer’s AI-detection system found that around 50,000 fully AI-generated tracks are now uploaded every day, accounting for 34% of all daily uploads.
File pic: iStock
The true number is most likely higher, as Deezer’s AI-detection system does not catch every AI-generated track. Nor does this figure include partially AI-generated tracks.
In January 2025, Deezer’s system identified 10% of uploaded tracks as fully AI-generated.
Since then, the proportion of AI tracks – made using written prompts such as “country, 1990s style, male singer” – has more than tripled, leading the platform’s chief executive, Alexis Lanternier, to say that AI music is “flooding music streaming”.
‘Siphoning money from royalty pool’
What’s more, when Deezer surveyed 9,000 people in eight countries – the US, Canada, Brazil, UK, France, Netherlands, Germany and Japan – and asked them to detect whether three tracks were real or AI, 97% could not tell the difference.
That’s despite the fact that the motivation behind the surge of AI music is not in the least bit creative, according to Deezer. The company says that roughly 70% of fully AI-generated tracks are what it calls “fraudulent” – that is, designed purely to make money.
“The common denominator is the ambition to boost streams on specific tracks in order to siphon money from the royalty pool,” a Deezer spokesperson told Sky News.
“With AI-generated content, you can easily create massive amounts of tracks that can be used for this purpose.”
File pic: Reuters
The tracks themselves are not actually fraudulent, Deezer says, but the behaviour around them is. Someone will upload an AI track then use an automated system – a bot – to listen to a song over and over again to make royalties from it.
Even though the total number of streams for each individual track is very low – Deezer estimates that together they account for 0.5% of all streams – the work needed to make an AI track is so tiny that the rewards justify the effort.
Are fully-AI tracks being removed?
Deezer is investing in AI-detection software and has filed two patents for systems that spot AI music. But it is not taking down the tracks it marks as fully-AI.
Instead it removes them from algorithmic recommendations and editorial playlists, a measure designed to stop the tracks getting streams and therefore generating royalties, and marks the tracks as “AI-generated content”.
“If people want to listen to an AI-generated track however, they can and we are not stopping them from doing so – we just want to make sure they are making a conscious decision,” the Deezer spokesperson says.
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Deezer’s survey found that more than half (52%) of respondents felt uncomfortable with not being able to tell the difference between AI and human-made music.
“The survey results clearly show that people care about music and want to know if they’re listening to AI or human-made tracks or not,” said the company’s boss Alexis Lanternier.
“There’s also no doubt that there are concerns about how AI-generated music will affect the livelihood of artists.”
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Musicians protests AI copyright plans
Earlier this year, more than 1,000 musicians – including Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn and Kate Bush – released a silent album to protest plans by the UK government to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission.
A recent study commissioned by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers suggested that generative AI music could be worth £146bn a year in 2028 and account for around 60% of music libraries’ revenues.
By this metric, the authors concluded, 25% of creators’ revenues are at risk by 2028, a sum of £3.5bn.
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