Demi Moore in The Substance and five other stars who made self-referential comebacks

“Thirty years in the past, I had a producer inform me I used to be a ‘popcorn actress’,” a tearful Demi Moore advised the Golden Globes this month when she picked up the award for Greatest Actress in a Musical/Comedy for her position in Coralie Fargeat’s satirical physique horror, The Substance.

You would possibly argue the film was actually extra of a drama – regardless, Moore’s now useless cert to win the Oscar for her efficiency as a fading Hollywood star-cum-Quasimodo.

The Substance follows Elisabeth Sparkle, a fading film star who reaches new lows after being sacked from her TV health present. Determined to cling to her youthful appears to be like, Sparkle turns to a bootleg drug known as The Substance, which comes at a lethal price.

The following chaos is a gnarly, Dorian Grey-style fable for the Ozempic technology – but it surely’s additionally a narrative near residence for its main woman.

Moore burst onto US screens within the 1981 cleaning soap opera, Common Hospital, and shortly turned one of many Nineteen Eighties and Nineties most recognisable stars with hits together with Ghost, Indecent Proposal and A Few Good Males.

However her vital acclaim waned within the late 90s, starring in a run of economic duds, like 1995’s The Scarlet Letter. Though in 1996, she turned the best paid actress in historical past, taking residence $12.5 million for Striptease, it turned one of many greatest flops of the last decade.

Into the 2000s, and Moore had gained the repute as a “unhealthy film” actress, that includes in a run of duds from Ardour of Minds (2000) to Half Gentle (2006).

A retreat from appearing coincided with excessive profile bust ups with long run husband Bruce Willis in 2000 – and later Ashton Kutcher in 2013 – resulting in fixed consideration from tabloid press. She turned relegated to the standing of a celeb, recognized for her appears to be like and relationships greater than her appearing chops.

Then got here The Substance and Elisabeth Sparkle — a task seemingly crafted for Moore and her personal story.

Her experiences of ageing throughout the savage system of Hollywood and its oppressive magnificence requirements is distilled into Sparkle’s character, making her efficiency have the uncanny ring of fact.

Hollywood has at all times cherished a comeback story, and there’s a captivating irony to it: by taking over roles that trace at their very own struggles or failures, actors like Moore are sometimes in a position to reclaim acclaim and respect, proving their enduring relevance.

This phenomenon isn’t distinctive to Moore—it’s a recurring sample within the business, the place artwork imitates life, and life, in flip, fuels nice performances.

So, to toast Moore’s success again on the prime of movie–the place she rightfully belongs–right here’s a listing of 5 different occasions Hollywood forged actors in roles that mirrored their lives:

An icon of Hollywood, Pamela Anderson was by no means taken severely as an actor. Like Moore, she knew a factor or two about being objectified by the media, having discovered fame operating in sluggish movement on a seaside for her position in Baywatch.

To not point out her intercourse tape along with her husband Tommy Lee, which was leaked by her electrician Rand Gauthier and controversially tailored right into a TV present by Hulu in 2022, one thing she later described as “crushing”.

However The Final Showgirl is now being praised as a career-best efficiency for Anderson, who lastly bought her enamel right into a critical drama.

Taking part in an ageing showgirl in Las Vegas known as Le Razzle Dazzle, the themes of fading magnificence and the leering male gaze dovetailed seamlessly onto Anderson’s personal life. This isn’t a mere coincidence. When Gia Coppolla watched Anderson’s Netflix documentary Pamela: A Love Story, she realised she’d discovered her good showgirl and stopped the casting course of for the movie totally.

After starring as Batman in Tim Burton’s early Nineties movies, Michael Keaton’s profession declined to supporting roles and B-movies like Jack Frost and First Daughter.

This was till Alejandro González Iñárritu forged him in Birdman as Riggan Thompson, an actor haunted by his previous superhero position who seeks redemption by a Broadway present, that includes a brilliantly antagonistic Edward Norton.

The selection of Keaton proved good – each he and Thompson have been actors outlined by superhero roles who sought inventive legitimacy. His uncooked efficiency earned an Oscar nomination and revitalised his profession, resulting in starring roles in Tom McCarthy’s Highlight in 2015 and past.

Mickey Rourke lacking out on the Oscar for The Wrestler might be the best theft of the twenty first Century.

Rourke had a vastly promising begin to his appearing profession within the Nineteen Eighties and labored with some legendary administrators like Francis Ford Coppola in Rumble Fish. He was additionally knowledgeable boxer, boasting a formidable 6-0 document, however sustained facial accidents within the Nineties that hindered each his sports activities and appearing profession.

By the 2000s, he started to rebuild, touchdown a task in Sin Metropolis, but it surely was the main half in The Wrestler that marked his triumphant return.

Rourke performs an ageing fighter, Randy “The Ram” Robinson, who’s attempting to get better his life after a career-ending damage. The position mirrored Rourke’s personal bodily struggles, evident in his uncooked and gut-wrenching efficiency.

Not many strains in cinema are fairly as laborious hitting because the misty-eyed large’s trembling phrases: “I’m an previous damaged down piece of meat!”

Probably the most tragic entry on this record (and never fairly a mirror-up-to-nature as a retrospective, through-the-looking-glass second), Garland was reaching the tip of her appearing profession when she was forged in A Star Is Born.

As one of many faces of the Golden Age of Hollywood and that of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Garland’s stardom had light by the point George Cukor produced the movie, which has been tailored twice since 1956. The story of Garland’s struggles is well-known, gripped as she was by a lifelong amphetamine dependancy inspired by the studios from a younger age.

Within the movie, she performs a rising musical star who eclipses the expertise of her lover and mentor–performed by James Mason, a profitable musician in decline. There’s a painful irony watching Garland’s efficiency as we speak, figuring out her flip as a rising star was in truth a swansong to her personal profession.

Gloria Swanson was one of the crucial recognisable faces of silent cinema within the first half of the twentieth Century, starring in Queen Kelly, Tonight or By no means, and Three For Bed room C. However roles dried up for the silent period icon as Hollywood shifted to movies with sound, or “talkies”: a change within the medium that put many silent movie actors out of labor.

Swanson’s character, Norma Desmond, was additionally an actor in her twilight years eager to make one final image. The casting reworked Sundown Boulevard into each a critique of Hollywood and a semi-autobiographical portrait of a bygone period.

Whereas Swanson publicly denied comparisons between herself and Desmond, their parallels place her firmly on this record. Swanson introduced tragedy and authenticity in spades to her character, significantly within the scene the place she famously declares: “I’m nonetheless massive: it is simply the photographs that bought small!”