‘The Substance’ prosthetics caused damage to Margaret Qualley’s face that took a year to heal
The Substance star Margaret Qualley has revealed that working on the award-winning film left her with skin damage that took around a year to recover from.
As the film progresses, the changes to her character, Sue, required a lot of prosthetics for the body horror finale. The process of wearing it took its toll, according to her recollection on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “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 fucked up” she said. “They couldn’t shoot my face anymore”.
The actor went from shooting The Substance straight to the set of Yorgos Lanthimos’ surreal drama Kinds Of Kindness, which required her to play four different characters. Happily, the acne that she had from wearing the prosthetics would come in useful for the portrayal of one of her roles.
“So, you know the character that has all that acne? That was just my acne from the prosthetics” Qualley said. “And I was like, ‘Oh this is kind of perfect. I’m playing all these different characters. For one of them, we’ll use all my crazy prosthetic acne.’ It took me probably a year to recover physically from all of it.”
The Substance would be one of the breakout hits of the year, recently winning Qualley’s co-star Demi Moore a Golden Globe. NME’s five-star review called the film a “bombastic body horror with plenty to say”, and said “Qualley is chilling as Sue, an ambitious blank canvas with no interior life”.
Moore’s win prompted a heartfelt speech from the star, who recalled a time when she was made to feel she was not worthy of awards. Despite the film’s success, The Substance director said there will be “no sequels, no prequels” to her film.
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Victoria Luxford
NME
