Demi Moore’s SAG Awards win for outstanding performance by a leading female actor on Sunday may be another stepping stone on her path to Oscar semi-inevitability, but what stands out has been her transparency and owning of her narrative, as exhibited in acceptance speeches that connect the dots from “that little girl who didn’t believe in herself” to her current stature as an icon of longevity.
It’s understandable to still be in awe of her Golden Globes speech for The Substance. Looking radiant on the stage, the actress eschewed a list of thank-yous to eloquently address the movie’s message about female insecurities. Let’s read the words: “I had a woman say to me, ‘Just know, you will never be enough. But you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.’”
With much respect to this anonymous sage, there’s even more to glean from watching an unfiltered 60-something Moore take on youth, beauty and fame on the screen. Queue up the movie and see for yourself.
No, not The Substance. Thank you, Brats.
Brats as in Brat Pack. You know, the young actors poised to take Hollywood in the 1980s thanks to the likes of The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire. But following a 1985 New York magazine cover story in which the writer the dubbed the group The Brat Pack, their careers cratered because they couldn’t lose the label. At least, that’s the thesis Andrew McCarthy posits in his 2024 Hulu documentary.
Throughout much of the film, the St. Elmo’s Fire actor crisscrosses the country desperately trying to convince his peers to agree with him. Much to the dismay of proud Gen X viewers, many do. Emilio Estevez looks at the vintage magazine article as if it’s covered in bodily fluids. Ally Sheedy mourns the loss of her friendships. Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald are purposely MIA. Oh, the stigma. The stigma!!!
Moore is the remarkable standout. Per the doc, she’s the first one to respond to McCarthy’s call and chirps that “I’m in L.A. right now!” After a sociological lecture from Malcolm Gladwell and a solemn take on the ’80s from a crinkly-eyed, beanie-wearing Timothy Hutton, she enters the picture as The Welcome Angel of Sweet Relief. Sitting out on her sunny pool deck in an oversized sweater, frayed jeans and slippers with minimal makeup, Moore exudes lightness and positivity. Indeed, though she admits the label irritated her back in the day, she wonders aloud why everyone interpreted it as “something bad.”
“I don’t know if I took it as personal over time as you did,” she tells McCarthy. “It was like there was a belief that you were holding something that … created a limitation in your expression.”
Then she extols an important lesson that can behoove us all: “I look at everything is happening for us, not to us. And you can’t be selective with that. Being seen as a Brat. … A common part of our conditioning is to see these things that we hold as ‘against-ness.’ But against-ness only provokes against-ness. So when we hold that against-ness, we create [a] pattern.” McCarthy is so taken by her smart analysis that he refers to her as “Dr. Demi.”
When Brats premiered last summer, it was all-too-easy to watch Moore relax in her mansion and chalk up her joie de vivre to a successful and lucrative post-Brat Pack career. After all, in the summer of 1990, she got to make pottery with Patrick Swayze in Ghost while Ally Sheedy and Ringwald were stuck playing stressed-out sisters in Betsy’s Wedding. But as Moore noted in her Globes speech, she was constantly dismissed as a “popcorn actress.” And like too many actresses of a certain age, she ultimately started to be dismissed altogether. Examine the spotty post-’90s IMDb profile for proof.
Note that Moore also reconnected with McCarthy in May 2023 — a full year before walking the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival for the world premiere of The Substance. Though she had already signed on to the project, not even her most optimistic self could have predicted this audacious, violently gory, body-switching horror movie would lead to her first Golden Globe nomination — let alone a win.
This is all to say Moore had every reason in that interview to be melancholic and nostalgic. In the moment, however, she chose to take the hopeful high ground. Call it a 180-degree switch from her movie star-turned-forlorn fitness guru character in The Substance. Sure, like Elizabeth Sparkle, Moore is post-prime only by Hollywood’s ridiculous standards. In Brats, she’s utterly comfortable in her own skin. She respects the balance, alright. Hers is between mind, body and soul.
There’s good reason to believe this attitude will carry her straight through to the Oscars. No doubt a victory for Moore would be a celebration for all Brat Pack fans who have watched their screen idols try to persevere for the past 40 years. (Credit to Brat Pack-adjacent Robert Downey Jr., who unofficially broke through last year when he won for Oppenheimer. From Weird Science to deceiving world-class scientists in just 38 years.)
And if Moore doesn’t end the big night holding a golden trophy, her comeback arc remains one for the ages. Just remember that the narrative was really set in motion when Moore refused to blame the past on her present. All she needed was the right cinematic vehicle — and a pair of wheels.
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