Demi Moore, 61, Says She Felt Pushed Out by Hollywood After She Turned 40

Aging in Hollywood is not easy, particularly for women. In a new interview, the actress Demi Moore, 61, is opening up about feeling like there was no place for her in Hollywood after she turned 40.

Moore Sounds Off

“I had done Charlie’s Angels, and there was a lot of conversation around this scene in a bikini, and it was all very heightened, a lot of talk about how I looked,” Moore said while speaking to the actress Michelle Yeoh in a conversation for Interview Magazine. Moore was 40 when she made Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, which came out in 2003.

“And then I found that there didn’t seem to be a place for me. I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong,” she continued. “It’s more like I felt that feeling of, ‘I’m not 20, I’m not 30,’ but I wasn’t yet what they perceived as a mother.”

At the time, Moore was actually a mother of three daughters whom she shared with Bruce Willis.

Moore went on to say that her 40s were a time when she felt “not dead, but flat” in the industry. 

Related: Bruce Willis’ Daughter Gives Sad Update About His Dementia Battle – ‘I Meet Him Where He’s At’

Yeoh Can Relate

Yeoh, 62, could relate to Moore’s experiences with aging in Hollywood.

“Hollywood is cruel to women of that age, where you don’t find the scripts or the characters that resonate with you anymore,” Yeoh said. “It’s either, you are the mother or you’re old enough not to be sexy in their eyes.”

Moore is currently promoting her new movie The Substance. Perhaps ironically, she plays a 50-year-old celebrity who finds a way to temporarily make herself younger. Unfortunately for her, this leads to some troublesome side effects. 

In her latest interview, Moore described the part as more than just a role. Instead, it’s a “unique way to be exploring this issue of aging, of societal conditioning, of what I also see as the pressure of the male-idealized woman that we as women have bought into.”

“At the core of it, what it’s really about is what we do to ourselves, and I loved that it was illustrated in such a physical way, showing that violence with what we do with our thoughts, how we attack ourselves and distort things,” she added. “There’s great power in knowing that what we do to ourselves is a choice, and we can make a different choice.” 

Related: Here’s Why Bruce Willis Left His Wife And Young Daughters To Quarantine With Ex Demi Moore

The Substance Drug

The official synopsis for The Substance explains how the fictional drug in the movie works.

“It generates another you,” it reads. “A new, younger, more beautiful, more perfect, you. And there’s only one rule: You share time. One week for you. One week for the new you. Seven days each. A perfect balance. Easy. Right? If you respect the balance… what could possibly go wrong?”

The Substance is set to hit theaters on September 20, 2024. Check out a trailer for the movie below.

The Substance is already garnering Oscar buzz for Moore. Despite being an A-list Hollywood star for decades, Moore has never actually been nominated for an Oscar. It will certainly be interesting to see how this Oscar season goes for her!