The only one of Demi Moore’s performances she doesn’t hate watching: “I can do that”
Actors rarely watch themselves back in movies.
But suppose you’re Demi Moore, whose most recent film, The Substance, a body horror directed by Coralie Fargeat, transformed her into a literal glob of oozing flesh and hair after her character’s obsession with staying young and relevant caused her to morph herself in increasingly extreme ways physically. In that case, you’d probably stay well away from the TV screen.
Add to this the fact that the lines between this film and reality became increasingly blurred when she was snubbed of an Oscar by a younger actor who played a sex worker in the movie of the year, when her film was quite literally about being an older fitness coach who is replaced by a younger, ‘hotter’ version of her, and you’ve got a deeply ironic turn of events.
So yeah, it’s understandable that Demi Moore might hate watching that. But since The Substance earned her a Golden Globe for her visceral performance that firmly put two fingers up to an old producer who called her “a popcorn actress”, the actor has been tentatively dipping into the archives.
There’s her iconic performance in Ghost, where she plays a grieving potter and earned a Golden Globe nomination, and then there’s her pre-Substance 2019 film, Corporate Animals. There’s also her scandalous role as a VP of a computer company who preys on her male colleague in Disclosure, a comic thriller about sexual harassment in the age of political correctness.
The actor admitted to watching some of Ghost with her daughter, who forced her mother to watch it after discovering that she had never seen it. Watching the film back changed Demi Moore’s opinion of her performance, and she conceded that she was actually “pretty good” in the film.
But surprisingly, the only film Demi Moore has actually been able to watch all the way through was Ridley Scott’s underbaked war drama, GI Jane. The film follows Lieutenant Jordan O’Neil, played by Demi Moore, who is chosen as the first woman to be allowed in the US Navy as part of a pilot programme to allow women into the Navy Seals, in response to political pressure from a female Senator.
Demi Moore’s character is chosen specially for her femininity, and is surrounded by people betting against her, entering into a gruelling training programme under the command of John James Urgayle, played by Viggo Mortensen, who pushes O’Neil to her limits until her determination and refusal to give up eventually earns his admiration.
GI Jane is one of Moore’s poorest reviewed films, so it’s surprising that the actor chose this one. She was even the topic of ridicule when GI Jane was released, earning a Razzie Award for worst actress (her second, after winning in 1996 for The Juror and Striptease combined). Feminist film critics also criticised the film’s pseudo-feminist leanings and overly zealous imperialist propaganda. But her performance as the tough-as-shit O’Neil who wouldn’t take no for an answer and got to scream: “Suck my dick!” likely gave Demi Moore sufficient joy and pride to keep watching.
In her own words, the actor admitted: “I’m not a big fan of watching myself, [but] with enough time… that is one of the advantages of having this much chronological time, you are a little bit more generous and forgiving.”
