The Substance's Margaret Qualley listened to Charli XCX to get into character
Margaret Qualley says she got her The Substance character Sue's energy from Charli XCX's old music.
Margaret Qualley’s character in 'The Substance' was inspired by Charli XCX’s “old music”.
The 29-year-old actress plays party animal Sue in the satirical body horror film, who is the “more perfect” version of 61-year-old co-star Demi Moore’s Elizabeth Sparkle, and she revealed she channelled the 32-year-old pop star's "energy" for her alter ego.
In a Brut America interview, the ‘Maid’ star - who is married to Charli's collaborator Jack Antonoff, 40 - said: “To me, it’s kind of wild timing the way the universe works because we all just had the Brat Summer, and I was listening to Charli as my ‘Sue’ inspo.
“She has a lot of good kind of ‘Pump it Up’ girl songs. I got that kind of ‘Sue’ energy from Charli’s old music.
“So, that’s where my head was.”
Demi, meanwhile, quipped that her music choices were “more silence”.
The Coralie Fargeat flick follows a former A-list celebrity as she tries a black-market drug that temporarily makes her feel younger, and Demi was able to relate to the story as she herself has experienced “humiliation” over her looks during her Hollywood career.
She told Empire magazine: "It’s such a unique way to explore the issue of ageing, and the male perspective of the idealised woman that we’ve bought into. Not what’s been done to us, but the part we’ve played in doing it to ourselves."
What I went through, the levels of humiliation, being told to lose weight. Whilst that was a circumstance I experienced, it was equally the process of what I put myself through, by placing too much of my overall value on my body. But within that has been my opportunity to overcome and actually find value in myself from who I am on the inside.”
