Margaret Qualley got ‘wasted’ on drugs and tequila to get through filming a raunchy scene in her new film The Substance.
The Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood actor, 29, stars in the film alongside Demi Moore and plays Sue, a ‘better version’ of her castmate’s ageing starlet character Elisabeth Sparkle, after she takes an experimental drug.
Margaret, the daughter of Four Weddings and a Funeral actress Andie MacDowell, has opened up about filming the wild and gory horror film – which shocked Cannes Film Festival audiences earlier this year, as well as crowds at London’s FrightFest last month.
In particular, she revealed she was ‘wasted’ while shooting a sexually charged sequence, as she believed ‘that specific kind of sexuality doesn’t lend itself to her.’
The GI Jane star recalled crying in a bathroom when she first rehearsed a scene in which her TV aerobics instructor character does a fiery dance number wearing a skimpy workout outfit – because she felt ‘so deeply ashamed’ making it.
She shared that she added marijuana and alcohol into the emotional mix to get through the shoot.
‘And still, day of, I just got wasted first thing in the morning because I was like, I can’t do this in front of everybody,’ she told The Sunday Times.
The Kinds Of Kindness star explained that a combination of weed and tequila provided Dutch courage helped her cope with the scene.
She went on to speak about working alongside Ghost megastar Demi, joking: ‘If Demi Moore wants to put her naked body on mine, go forth, please. I should be so lucky.’
The star previously defended the gratuitious gore and body horror in the Coralie Fargeat film after it polarised Cannes viewers.
‘We were obviously quite close at some moments…and naked. But there was also a levity [in shooting those scenes],’ she told the crowd at Cannes following a 13-minute standing ovation.
She said the film ‘pushed her out of her comfort zone’ but that the explicit imagery was ‘necessary to tell this story.’
Revenge director Fargeat made a surprise appearance at FrightFest to explain the film’s themes, boldly stating ‘being a woman is body horror.’
‘It’s always hard to know exactly where the idea comes from,’ she began. ‘It’s an idea that’s been there for many years but it was only really after working on Revenge that I felt ready to confront myself and the themes that are quite deep and challenging.
She added: ‘I read a tagline that I really loved that said “being a woman is body horror” so I felt that couldn’t be truer.’
The film currently holds a strong 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics’ consensus reading: ‘Audaciously gross, wickedly clever, and possibly Demi Moore’s finest hour, The Substance is a gasp-inducing feat from writer-director Coralie Fargeat.’