Demi Moore Recalls 'a Lot of Talk About How I Looked' in “Charlie's Angels 2” Bikini Scene and How It Affected Her

The actress, who was 40 when she filmed her role, said, "I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong"

Demi Moore opened up about her bikini scene in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.

The actress, 61, spoke about her new movie, The Substance, and Hollywood beauty norms with Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh for an Interview magazine article published on Tuesday, Aug. 27.

Moore looked back at her past experiences in the movie industry and complimented the Everything Everywhere All at Once actress on her recent Academy Award win, saying that her acceptance speech reminded her "that we can define where we want it to go and who we are."

She said, "We don’t have to fight against that, we just have to believe that something else is possible. To me, what’s exciting is, in the film, I’m representing a past ideal and not what my present is."

Moore, who was 40 years old when she filmed the 2003 sequel to Charlie's Angels, noted that she struggled with her own identity after appearing in the action movie. "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," she shared.

The Feud: Capote vs. the Swans actress felt at the time that "there didn’t seem to be a place for me."

She continued, "I didn’t feel like I didn’t belong. 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."

Moore played a former Angel with a dark secret in the movie. During the aforementioned scene, she meets Cameron Diaz’ character at a beach stakeout while wearing a black string bikini made of a crochet pattern.

Yeoh, who is 62, related to Moore's experience, saying, "Hollywood is cruel to women of that age, where you don’t find the scripts or the characters that resonate with you anymore. It’s either, you are the mother or you’re old enough not to be sexy in their eyes."

Moore explores these themes in her new horror movie, in which she plays Hollywood star Elisabeth Sparkle as she uses an experimental drug advertised to create a younger version of herself — ultimately, her clone Sue, played by Margaret Qualley.

The official synopsis for The Substance teases how the fictional drug works, teasing: "It generates another you. 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?"

In the interview, Moore said she was "moved" when she read the movie's script "because it was such 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."

She continued to explain that the movie explores the themes in a more personal manner. "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 said.

The Substance is in theaters on Sept. 20, 2024.

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