34 years after making her acting debut as a teenager in 1981, Demi Moore has finally been nominated for an Academy Award for the very first time at the age of 62 thanks to her performance as fading celebrity Elisabeth Spakrle in “The Substance”.

Following the success of Coralie Fargeat’s body horror film, “fading” is one adjective that certainly can’t be used to describe Moore, who will go up against controversial “Emilia Pérez” actress Karla Sofía Gascón and three others in the Best Actress category.

Demi Moore’s rise to stardom

Having first appeared in the public eye on the cover of adult magazine Oui, Moore’s acting career really took off a few years later in the mid-1980s. Her appearance in 1985 box office hit “St. Elmo’s Fire” brought her widespread recognition and was the first step to her becoming the world’s highest-paid actress by 1995.

The New Mexico native got there via some of the biggest films of the early 1990s, including “Ghost” (1990), “A Few Good Men” (1992), “Indecent Proposal” (1993) and “Disclosure” (1994). Those movies led to her being offered $12.5 million to star in 1996 black comedy “Striptease,” which was a record figure at the time.

After starring in “G.I. Jane” in 1997, Moore took herself out of the spotlight, prioritizing raising her three daughters with (now ex) husband Bruce Willis.

Moore’s critical acclaim in “The Substance”

She took on sporadic roles, including in “Charlies’ Angels: Full Throttle” in 2003, and featured in independent films and on television, with relatively little fanfare. Until “The Substance,” and Paramount+ series “Landman,” that is.

Following the film’s premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, “fearless” Moore was described as performing in her “best big-screen role in decades” by BBC film critic Nicholas Barber, while Time Out’s global film editor Phil de Semlyen voiced his belief she had “glued the magnificent shocker all together”.

And that has resulted in her receiving more critical acclaim than ever before. Moore has already won a Golden Globe, a Critics’ Choice Movie Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her portrayal of Elisabeth Sparking. Can she add a first ever Oscar on March 2?

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