Demi Moore isn’t taking her surprise Academy Awards loss to heart.
Moore was widely seen as this year’s front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar for “The Substance,” in which she portrays a fading Hollywood star who goes to deadly extremes to appear youthful. She ended up losing the award to Mikey Madison, whose bold and feisty portrayal of a New York sex worker in “Anora” was, by all accounts, a breakout performance.
Among those who weren’t surprised by Madison’s win, however, was Moore herself. In an interview with Time, who named her one of this year’s 100 most influential people, the “Ghost” actor said she had a gut feeling Madison would be the one to emerge victorious on Oscars night.
“I leaned over and whispered to my manager, ‘I think it’s going to Mikey,’” she told the outlet. “I don’t know why I knew, but I did. I was so centered and calm. I didn’t feel gutted.”
After the Oscars aired March 2, many fans and critics were quick to interpret Madison’s win as a case of life imitating art. In “The Substance,” Moore’s character, Elisabeth Sparkle, is fired from her hosting gig on a daytime fitness program after she turns 50.
It’s only after Elisabeth uses an illicit drug to spawn a younger version of herself named Sue (played by Margaret Qualley) that she’s able to regain prominence in her industry ― with some grisly consequences.
Moore, however, graciously reacted to her loss by congratulating Madison on Instagram. Though she continued to shrug off any perceived rivalry between the two actors in her Time interview, she acknowledged, “The physical, human part that has ego, of course, has disappointment. It certainly would have been wonderful to have won.”
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Though Moore may have to wait a bit for her next Academy Award nod, she says she’s “in trust of, whatever is going to unfold” with her acting career moving forward. She’s set to return to the big screen alongside Keke Palmer and LaKeith Stanfield in “I Love Boosters,” written and directed by Boots Riley. She’s also currently at work on the Season 2 of her Paramount+ series, “Landman.”
“To go from the beginning of this last year feeling like I was never part of the conversation to being acknowledged in a critical way for my work has just allowed me to open up my belief in greater possibilities,” she said.