Demi Moore Reflects on Buzz Over Her Bikini Scene in ‘Charlie’s Angels 2’

Demi Moore opened up about her bikini scene in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. The actress, 61, discussed her new movie, The Substance, and Hollywood beauty norms with Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh for an Interview magazine article published on August 27.

Reflecting on her past experiences in the movie industry, Moore praised the Everything Everywhere All at Once actress on her recent Academy Award win, stating that her acceptance speech reminded her that “we can define where we want it to go and who we are.”

Moore explained, “We don’t have to fight against that, we just have to believe that something else is possible. To me, what’s exciting is, in the film, I’m representing a past ideal and not what my present is.”

At 40, while filming the 2003 sequel to Charlie’s Angels, Moore struggled with her own identity. “I had done Charlie’s Angels, and there was a lot of conversation around this scene in a bikini, and it was all very heightened, a lot of talk about how I looked,” she recounted.

Feeling at the time that “there didn’t seem to be a place for me,” Moore shared, “I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong. It’s more like I felt that feeling of, I’m not 20, I’m not 30, but I wasn’t yet what they perceived as a mother.”

Moore played a former Angel with a dark secret in the movie. In an iconic scene, she meets Cameron Diaz’s character at a beach stakeout while wearing a black string bikini made of a crochet pattern.

Yeoh, who is 62, related to Moore’s experience, sharing, “Hollywood is cruel to women of that age, where you don’t find the scripts or the characters that resonate with you anymore. It’s either, you are the mother or you’re old enough not to be sexy in their eyes.”

Moore explores these themes in her new horror movie, where she portrays Hollywood star Elisabeth Sparkle. Her character uses an experimental drug that creates a younger version of herself — her clone Sue, played by Margaret Qualley.

The official synopsis of The Substance explains how the fictional drug functions, teasing: “It generates another you. A new, younger, more beautiful, more perfect, you. And there’s only one rule: You share time. One week for you. One week for the new you. Seven days each. A perfect balance. Easy. Right? If you respect the balance… what could possibly go wrong?”

In the interview, Moore shared how she was “moved” by the movie’s script because “it was such a unique way to be exploring this issue of aging, of societal conditioning, of what I also see as the pressure of the male-idealized woman that we as women have bought into.”

She elaborated that the movie examines these themes in a deeply personal manner. “At the core of it, what it’s really about is what we do to ourselves, and I loved that it was illustrated in such a physical way—showing that violence with what we do with our thoughts, how we attack ourselves and distort things,” she said.

The Substance hits theaters on September 20, 2024.

Source: Interview Magazine