Margaret Qualley Says 'The Substance' Prosthetics Gave Her Horrible Acne: 'My Face Was So F**ked Up'
Margaret Qualley says the extensive prosthetics she wore for "The Substance" left her with acne for a year afterward.
Qualley, 30, starred in the body horror film alongside Demi Moore, 62, who won a Golden Globe for her performance, marking her first ever acting award. In the film, Moore's character, Elisabeth Sparkle, gets fired from her aerobics TV show for getting too old, so she turns to a black market drug that promises to create a younger version of herself (Qualley), but comes with monstrous side effects.
During an appearance on a recent episode of the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, Qualley shared that the grotesque prosthetics and special effects makeup she wore in the film left her with terrible acne for a long time afterward.
"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," Qualley said. "They couldn't shoot my face anymore."
But even though her face was marred, it didn't get in the way of her next project, the Yorgos Lanthimos-directed "Kinds of Kindness." In that film, Qualley plays four different characters, one of whom has acne.
"So, you know the character that has all that acne? That was just my acne from the prosthetics," Qualley revealed. "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.'"
Qualley said her experience making "The Substance" was rewarding despite the fact that "it took me probably a year to recover physically from all of it."
"Demi and I worked so hard on this for like ... it was a five-month shoot," she said. "It was at once rewarding and painful. I'm so grateful for the life 'The Substance' is having."
-- With reporting by TMX