“I threw it all away”: the moment Margaret Qualley abandoned one dream for another
Margaret Qualley has followed in her mother’s footsteps to become a great actor, but it wasn’t her first choice of profession.
It has become easy to accuse any child of a prominent Hollywood figure of being a nepo baby, when, in reality, it’s a more complicated topic of conversation. It’s not unusual for children to follow in the same line of work as their parents, and acting in particular is a profession that seems to run in families. There’s no guarantee that the child of a famous actor will be received positively; no amount of success that Will Smith had was able to make Jaden Smith into a compelling movie star.
Andie MacDowell was one of the last members of the ‘Brat Pack’ to take off following her role in St Elmo’s Fire, but her daughter Margaret Qualley has already achieved more. She may not be as identifiable because of her last name, and she’s also chosen the type of experimental roles that were unlike what her mother ever did, but she rarely turns in a bad performance, even if it is in a terrible movie like Honey Don’t!
While Qualley has emerged as one of the most exciting young actors of her generation, she was training to be a ballet dancer for years, unwilling to go into the same field as her mother, but it was while attending a class that she noticed an elderly woman in a wheelchair who was watching the dancers perform, and that’s what changed her mind.
“She was there because she loved ballet and the music,” Qualley told Vogue, “She was having the time of her life, and I thought, I’m hating this class. I’m doing it for all the wrong reasons. I’m only here because I want to be better at school on Monday. I’m tired, my knees constantly hurt, I walk with a limp because my hips don’t turn out perfectly, which means I’ll never be the dancer that I want to be. So, I walked out mid-class. I quit it all. It was my big dream, and I threw it all away.”
Abandoning ballet after significant training may not have been an easy decision, but Qualley was smart to recognise the choice that was in front of her, because even if she had talent, her career would never be satisfying if she were stuck doing something she did not enjoy for the rest of her life. Acting became something she had more freedom doing, as it also offered her the means to experiment and take on unusual parts.
Qualley’s skills have earned her acclaim, particularly when her performance in the Netflix miniseries Maid helped spark a larger conversation about domestic abuse and women who are in dangerous relationships. She’ll next be seen in Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated science fiction thriller The Dog Stars, for which she earned praise from her co-star, Jacob Elordi.
While it appears that she has nowhere to go but up when it comes to her acting career, her dancing skills have actually managed to come in handy for a few specific roles.
Performing a highly choreographed fitness routine was an important part of her performance in The Substance, a film in which she played a younger version of her mother’s St Elmo’s Fire co-star, Demi Moore.
