--- title: Demi Moore and the Faulty Notion of 'Serious' Acting description: Whether or not Moore wins the Best Actress Oscar, she has changed how we think about acting: who gets to be taken seriously, and who doesn’t? canonical: https://time.com/7260443/demi-moore-oscar-nomination-career/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-02-24T21:56:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:51:37.071Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Demi Moore and the Faulty Notion of 'Serious' Acting og:description: Whether or not Moore wins the Best Actress Oscar, she has changed how we think about acting: who gets to be taken seriously, and who doesn’t? og:url: https://time.com/7260443/demi-moore-oscar-nomination-career/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd7111f70057a0568/6998c459e1ba00725398d4cd/demi-moore-movies.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: demi-moore-movies og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Demi Moore and the Faulty Notion of 'Serious' Acting twitter:description: Whether or not Moore wins the Best Actress Oscar, she has changed how we think about acting: who gets to be taken seriously, and who doesn’t? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd7111f70057a0568/6998c459e1ba00725398d4cd/demi-moore-movies.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Demi Moore and the Faulty Notion of 'Serious' Acting > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: The Most Memorable Moments of the 2025 SAG Awards [Watch (HLS stream): The Most Memorable Moments of the 2025 SAG Awards](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/X8sHRWpR.m3u8) (1:58)  _Published 2025-02-24. The Most Memorable Moments of the 2025 SAG Awards._  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Feb 24, 2025 9:56 PM UTC  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Images: MUBI/Everett, Paramount/Everett, CBS/Getty Images, Getty Images, Jeff Kravitz—FilmMagic/Getty Images, Rich Polk—GG2025/Penske Media/Getty Images)  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Feb 24, 2025 9:56 PM UTC If you went to the movies anytime from the late 1980s through the 1990s, you knew the voice and the face: Demi Moore could be the grieving artsy girl ([_Ghost_](https://entertainment.time.com/2010/10/22/top-10-i-see-dead-people-movies/slide/ghost/)), the recent college grad out for nothing but fun (_St. Elmo’s Fire_), the determined Navy SEAL-type candidate who outclassed her fellow inductees, and could do just as many one-arm pushups (_G.I. Jane_). Her winsome hazel-brown eyes had a melting quality—but you could see fire in them, too. Her voice, like a potent, salty teardrop, was more memorable than that of many of her peers. She had a fearless, take-charge quality; when she appeared nude and very pregnant on a 1991 _Vanity Fair_ cover, _everybody_, around _every_ office water-cooler, as quaint as that sounds today, talked about it. No one had ever showed off a pregnancy like that before, and the fact that she looked more movie-star radiant than church-madonna-pure made the image even more compelling. She was an actress made for the 1990s, for the grand rush of second-wave feminism, for the first decade in which red-carpet glamour became a thing people paid serious attention to, for a pre-Kardashian era when most celebrities were famous for actually doing something. But if her movies made money—and _she_ made money—no one would ever have put her in the same class as, say, Meryl Streep. She was fun to watch, she had guts, but she wasn’t _serious._ And then her era passed; she didn’t quite disappear from the movie screen, but almost—only to come roaring back in a feminist horror movie that, before its premiere in Cannes last spring, where it became one of the most talked-about competition films, no one could have seen coming. That’s how an actress sprints—or maybe power-walks, across a decade or two—from being a presence people are happy enough to pay money to see to being considered, at last, worthy of an Oscar. In January, Moore won a [Golden Globe](https://time.com/7204400/golden-globes-2025-recap/) for her turn in Coralie Fargeat’s horror grossout [_The Substance_](https://time.com/6980524/the-substance-review/). On Feb. 23, she [won a SAG award](https://time.com/7260903/sag-awards-2025-recap/); her speech had a homespun, earnest sweetness, a nice contrast with her elegant columnar take-no-prisoners black leather gown. Whether or not Moore wins the [Best Actress Oscar on March 2](https://time.com/7209102/oscar-nominations-2025-snubs-surprises/), she has at least changed the nature of how we think about movie acting: who gets to be taken seriously, and who doesn’t? And more to the point: is it always really the “great lady” performances we remember, and love, best? **Read more:** [_It’s Time for the Oscars to Take Horror Seriously_](https://time.com/7206716/oscars-2025-horror-demi-moore-the-substance/) In January, when Moore accepted her Golden Globe award, she began her speech by telling the audience that 30 years ago, a producer had told her she was a “popcorn actress.” She took his words so seriously that she sealed her own fate, interpreting them to mean that she “could do movies that were successful and made a lot of money,” but that awards weren’t something she was meant to have. She went on to remind us that women are so often made to feel, as she was, that they aren’t enough. “You can never be enough,” she said, “but you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.”  Demi Moore in The Substance Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival Moore’s speech doesn’t suggest that the industry has changed all that much: if it had, we wouldn’t need movies like _The Substance,_ in which the aging starlet played by Moore, Elisabeth Sparkle, becomes hooked on a youth-replenishing treatment that allows her to switch bodies, for a week at a time, with a younger, “better” version of herself (played by Margaret Qualley). Youthful beauty will never _not_ be a priority in Hollywood. But how we look at actors may have evolved, thanks in part to actors like Moore. The ideas in _The Substance_—a riff on how women are seen as disposable in Hollywood, and pretty much everywhere else, as they age—aren’t really that deep, and the movie loses steam on the road to its body-horror-in-overdrive ending. Yet it's easy to see why _The Substance_ has both energized and rattled audiences. Moore’s performance is funny, shrewd, and in places deeply moving. And even as it builds on her decades-old persona as an appealing, bankable actress, it also lobs a grenade at an idea we’ve hung onto for too long, the same one that inspired that producer’s cruel and crushing remark. “Serious” performances are the ones we think about at Oscar time. But the performances we often collectively think of as great aren’t always as great as we think. Often they say more about our desire to be seen as people with good taste than they do about anything a performer is actually putting onscreen. The reality is that wonderful performers often win for the wrong movies: I would say, for example, that if we’re talking about performances that really resonate, Renée Zellweger was more "Oscar-worthy" in _Bridget Jones’s Diary_ than she was in that homespun bit of silliness _Cold Mountain._ It’s the same with Moore. For reasons that have nothing to do with her talents, she has never broken through that often mysteriously impermeable barrier that separates allegedly great actors from merely appealing ones. Moore’s performance in _The Substance_ _is_ terrific, though it rests squarely on the strength of one scene: Elisabeth, no longer getting the fawning male attention she used to, has accepted a date from an old schoolmate, nerdy but nice, who has harbored a crush on her for decades. She’s gotten ready to meet him and stands in front of the mirror, looking both confident and awesome in heels and a nicely fitting red mini dress, her makeup subtle and becoming. But the more she looks at her image—and the more she compares it to her younger, fresher counterpart, who lies nearby, having been put into the required substance-induced coma for her week “off”—the unhappier she becomes. She wraps an ugly scarf around her neck, the better to cover up. She adds garish makeup. Before you know it, she’s made so many adjustments, all bad ones, that she’s inadvertently stood up her date. This is a bitterly funny scene, but it also cuts deep. In _The Substance,_ Moore, in real life a fantastic-looking 62, is playing an equally fantastic-looking woman in her mid- to late fifties. But there’s a point where the words “for her age” are always going to be appended, out loud or otherwise, to the classic, welcome compliment “She looks great.” We can fight aging with exercise and plastic surgery, but there’s never any way we can match our younger selves. That’s not a reason to feel miserable; it’s a reason to feel glad to be alive and to celebrate the fact that we're, hopefully, smarter, kinder, and all-around better than we were at 25\. But as we age, we’re always having to say goodbye to the person we were 5 or 10 years ago, as well as 40 years ago. Sometimes it just hurts. Elisabeth’s brain-rattling fears of no longer being desired, of being left behind by the world, are all right there on Moore’s face and in her body language. This is the kind of performance you’re likely to remember for a long time, maybe especially if you're a woman. **Read more:** [_The 10 Best Movie Performances of 2024_](https://time.com/7201920/best-movie-performances-2024/) It's true that there have been plenty of movies in which Moore merely got the job done—although you can say that about any performer, even, maybe especially, about the great ones. She’s perfectly charming in Adrian Lyne’s 1993 _Indecent Proposal,_ which pretends to be a lot steamier than it is. Moore plays a young real-estate agent, Diana, who’s happily married to Woody Harrelson’s bespectacled architect, until the couple fall on hard times. A suave, mysterious older billionaire—played by a sly and not-really-that-old Robert Redford—takes a shine to her and offers the duo a million dollars to sleep with her for just one night. Despite its title, the film is disappointingly decent; there’s an early sequence featuring some 1990s-style kitchen-floor sex, but mostly, the movie obsesses over what it poses as crucial questions (Should a woman ever be treated as property?) in the most boring way possible. Yet Moore is _not_ boring. Diana has principles, she has a soul—she wears clothes from the thrift store, for God’s sake! You’re on her side immediately, not least because, like Redford’s Mr. Moneybags, you’ve been seduced by that raspy purr of a voice. But Moore’s finest performance, at least of the 1990s, may be her turn as Lieutenant Jordan O’Neil in Ridley Scott’s absurdly enjoyable _G.I. Jane_ (1997). A Texas senator (played by a Anne Bancroft as a silky-smooth nut-buster), seeing the injustice of the Navy’s unwillingness to fully integrate women, strikes a deal with Navy higher-ups: if a woman can make it through a grueling training program—a version of the one that tests the mettle of real-life Navy SEALS—then the Navy will have to welcome well-trained, qualified women into combat roles previously available only to men. (Funny how, nearly 30 years later, we’re having [this conversation](https://time.com/4003596/women-navy-seals/) again.)  Demi Moore in a scene from 'G.I. Jane', 1997. Buena Vista/Getty Images O’Neil does everything the guys do, and sometimes she does it better. The hard-ass instructor Command Master Chief John James Urgayle ([Viggo Mortensen](https://time.com/4413624/viggo-mortensen-and-matt-ross-on-the-fantasy-of-perfect-fatherhood/)) at first offers her preferential treatment; then he subjects her to a beating—and some discreetly shot waterboarding—designed to drive her out of the program. With her hands tied behind her back, her face a bloody mess, she beats the living crap out of him, capping off this gorgeous display of kicking and head-butting with an invocation—“Suck my dick!”—that earns his undying respect. As it should. **Read more:** [_While Brad Pitt and George Clooney Settle Into Silver-Fox Charm, Their Female Peers Are the True Stars of the Season_](https://time.com/7022773/wolfs-george-clooney-brad-pitt-fall-movie-actresses/) Moore trained hard for this role, and Scott films her in a way that does right by her finely sculpted muscles. We’re not so much invited to ogle her as to gape in awe. With her shaven head, she looks a little like the object-of-desire soldiers [Claire Denis](https://time.com/6195091/both-sides-of-the-blade-review/) would give us a few years later in her extravagant celebration of the male body _Beau Travail._ This is a performance that entwines intense physicality with simmering determination, and a sense of humor. It’s fun to watch, and you never forget it. It’s telling that the Golden Raspberry Awards, or Razzies, one of the most useless awards organizations ever conceived—and one that, thankfully, seems to get a lot less attention for its dumb pronouncements than it used to—gave Moore their Worst Actress award that year. We love our great lady actors, our [Meryl Streeps](https://time.com/5920026/meryl-streep-comedy/), our Helen Mirrens, our [Maggie Smiths](https://time.com/7026003/maggie-smith-remembrance/); there’s nothing wrong with that. But greatness sometimes descends quietly on people who have gone the distance, landing with the downy-soft whisper of a puff of popcorn. In the grand theater of the Oscars, that’s the best kind of victory—one that offers a second chance, as if to make up for all the years we weren’t really paying attention, maybe because we were having too much fun watching an actor do what she does best, and making it look like nothing. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7260443/demi-moore-oscar-nomination-career/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7260443/demi-moore-oscar-nomination-career/"},"headline":"Demi Moore and the Faulty Notion of 'Serious' Acting","datePublished":"2025-02-24T21:56:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:51:37.071Z","description":"Whether or not Moore wins the Best Actress Oscar, she has changed how we think about acting: who gets to be taken seriously, and who doesn’t?","url":"https://time.com/7260443/demi-moore-oscar-nomination-career/","keywords":["awards","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd7111f70057a0568/6998c459e1ba00725398d4cd/demi-moore-movies.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Stephanie Zacharek","jobTitle":"Film Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd7111f70057a0568/6998c459e1ba00725398d4cd/demi-moore-movies.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"demi-moore-movies","caption":"","creditText":"Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Images: MUBI/Everett, Paramount/Everett, CBS/Getty Images, Getty Images, Jeff Kravitz—FilmMagic/Getty Images, Rich Polk—GG2025/Penske Media/Getty Images)","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/awards/","name":"awards"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7260443/demi-moore-oscar-nomination-career/","name":"Demi Moore and the Faulty Notion of 'Serious' Acting"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Most Memorable Moments of the 2025 SAG Awards","description":"The Most Memorable Moments of the 2025 SAG Awards.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/X8sHRWpR/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2025-02-24T17:11:18.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/X8sHRWpR.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/7260443/demi-moore-oscar-nomination-career/","duration":"PT1M58S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/7260443/demi-moore-oscar-nomination-career/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```