This post contains spoilers for The Substance
That wild ending of The Substance was a delight to watch, but “torture” to actually make.
“It was torture,” star Margaret Qualley 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.”
[Final warning for spoilers]
In Coralie Fargeat’s new film, Demi Moore‘s Elisabeth Sparkle injects herself with a drug known as “the substance” in which she becomes a younger, more “perfect” version of herself, Sue, played by Qualley. The one catch: they have to switch bodies every seven days. Sue doesn’t play along after she becomes famous, however, and by the end of the film, Elisabeth and Sue have turned into a grotesque, Toxic Avenger-like monster known as Monstro Elisasue.
Qualley 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.” The suit actually caused acne to break out on her face, but “honestly,” she said, “I kind of loved the way that looked so it was OK.”
The Substance is out in theaters now.
(Via USA Today)
