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Margaret Qualley underwent a pretty incredible transformation in The Substance but it had lasting effects.
Margaret Qualley has opened up about the negative effect that using prosthetics in The Substance had on her face.
It's impossible to imagine pop culture over the past year without The Substance. From phrases like 'The balance must be respected' to the visual of Sue working out to 'Pump It Up', the body horror left quite an impression. It also earned critical acclaim for its commentary on beauty standards and led to Demi Moore winning her first Golden Globe.
For anyone who's seen the film, they will be well aware that there are multiple shocking on camera moments. On top of that, the makeup and prosthetics throughout are next level. However, Margaret Qualley has now revealed that it took a whole year for her face to recover from damage caused by the prosthetics that she wears in the film.
Margaret Qualley posts video in Monstro Elisasue prosthetics
In The Substance, Hollywood star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is fired from her aerobics show when she turns 50. This leads her to seek out a drug called The Substance. After taking the drug, Elisabeth births a younger version of herself who she shares a consciousness with - the catch is she has to alternate living as each every seven days.
As the film progresses, Elisabeth's younger self Sue (Margaret Qualley) breaks the rules and puts off switching back to Elisabeth. This causes Elisabeth's body to rapidly deteriorate and Sue later kills Elizabeth. Sue's body then starts to deteriorate so she uses The Substance again to birth a new younger self but it creates Monstro Elisasue.
Monstro Elisasue is a grotesteque mutation of both Elisabeth and Sue. Margaret plays Monstro Elisasue in the film. However, the prosthetics were so extensive that they did actual damage to Margaret's face.
Speaking on “Happy Sad Confused” about the damage, Margaret said: "At the end, when they’re shooting up my skirt in the beginning credits, and it’s like the palm trees all around and they have all these long lenses from the bottom, that’s just because my face was so f---ed up. They couldn’t shoot my face anymore.”
Margaret then revealed that it worked in her favour for her next film Kinds of Kindness where she played a character with severe acne. She said: "You know the character that has all that acne? That was just my acne from the prosthetics."
She then added: "It took me probably a year to recover physically from all of it.”
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