The Santa Barbara International Film Festival honored Oscars Best Actress nominee Demi Moore with a career retrospective for its 40th edition. From screenings including “Indecent Proposal” and “Ghost,” Moore joined festival Director Roger Durling for a Q&A following the Sunday, February 9 screening of Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance.”
In a wide-ranging conversation spanning the actor’s filmography, Moore reflected on 1992’s “A Few Good Men.” Durling gave credit to the filmmakers for the revolutionary act of not romanticizing her relationship with co-star Tom Cruise. “I think at that time I really, you know, have to give my my incredible thanks to Rob Reiner and Aaron Sorkin because they really stood up to the studio to really take a stand that the relationship was better than needing to have it devolve into something romantic because it was Tom Cruise and myself,” Moore said.
“And they did come up against some opposition, which I found out much later,” Moore continued. “Aaron Sorkin shared a story of a studio executive basically saying that, ‘If there was going to be no love scene, then why did they have Demi Moore?’ It was the ’90s, but to their credit, I think they saw that there was greater value in the relationship between these two characters, not needing to go there. It didn’t need it, it was better than that.”
In 1996, Moore starred in “Striptease.” “I think the idea that I was playing a a woman whose profession included taking her clothes off publicly was also something that people weren’t quite ready to really see,” Moore recalled.
In a full circle moment, Moore paid homage to her fellow Best Actress nominee Mikey Madison, who starred in Sean Baker’s “Anora” as a sex worker who becomes enthralled with a Russian customer who throws her life into a whirlwind rollercoaster. “I’m so happy to see ‘Anora’ and to see what’s happening with Mikey Madison and seeing her really being acknowledged, because it was such a brave thing she did, which just tells me that we have come a long way.”
Celebrating the Demi-ssaince that has come out of the massive success of Fargeat’s Cannes Best Screenplay winner, Durling had nothing but praise for Moore, saying that audience members took Moore for granted in recent years before Moore proved how “still vital” she is. “You deserve far more of our love than we’ve ever given you,” Durling told Moore.
“What I’ve come to realize is that nobody can throw you under the bus unless you’ve thrown yourself under the bus,” Moore said. “People can’t appreciate you unless you appreciate yourself. When you hold and value yourself for all that you are, as you are in whatever moment that is, then the rest of the world will follow. It doesn’t go the other way around. I just wasn’t ready yet to hold all that I am until this very moment.”
