Before we get into it, please be warned that we’re about to drop some major spoilers for The Substance. So, if you’ve still not seen Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley’s much-hyped new body horror, turn away now.
We’re not joking, people, we’re about to share an absolutely massive spoiler for the film’s ending, so if you’ve not watched it yet, get this page bookmarked, and we can catch up once you’ve seen it.
OK… now that it’s just us… what about that ending of The Substance, eh?
Obviously, between all of the scenes of spine-splitting, vomiting, close-up injections and Dennis Quaid chowing down on a plate full of prawns, the whole film wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but there was really no preparing for the birth of Monstro Elisasue in the final act, was there?
And if you thought it made for tough viewing, spare a thought for Margaret, who was required to sit for six hours in the makeup chair to transform into the monstrous character.
“It was torture,” she told USA Today. “I had this awesome team of prosthetic artists that put it on me and took it off of me and got me through the day and made me laugh a couple of times while I was just on the brink of panic.”
She continued: “I only have one eye. I can’t hear anything. I can’t move my arms. I’ve got these retainers in that are like too huge, they just kind of cut everything.
“It was grueling to embody. But the purity of the soul at that moment was so refreshing because I’d been playing [Sue] for four-and-a-half months by that point, who was really hard to relate to. Like really soulless, man.”
Margaret previously shared that she broke out in “crazy acne for a full, long-ass time” after filming was complete, which she’s now said was the result of the prosthetics.
However, despite it all, the Once Upon A Time In Hollywood star has insisted she actually enjoyed aspects of playing Monstro Elisasue as it allowed her to tap into a different set of emotions.
“It was special to be able to finally feel love and gooeyness and have that come from a place of being like totally physically weird, though I find Monstro kind of gorgeous, too,” she added. “It was complicated because it was internally very moving and externally, well, moving in its own way.”
Demi has also spoken candidly about the impact making The Substance had on her physical health, after a shoot that really put her through her paces.
The Substance is in cinemas now.
