Lucy Liu, With Her Girl Drew, Cameron D And Demi Reunited To Celebrate The Substance (And Talk Charlie’s Angels Bikini Scene)
Demi Moore has been receiving a lot of praise for starring in one of the best horror movies we’ve seen in years, The Substance – and was CinemaBlend’s collective favorite movie of 2024. On top of Moore being nominated for Best Actress by the Academy, she reunited with her fellow Charlie’s Angels alums over 20 years after being in Full Throttle. Her conversation with Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu saw the iconic Hollywood actresses talking about Moore’s powerful movie and her iconic FT bikini scene, of course.
The Charlie’s Angels Reunited With Demi Moore To Celebrate The Substance
Just recently, Cameron Diaz was asked about reviving Charlie’s Angels, following her return to acting for Netflix’s Back In Action. It’s unclear if that’ll happen, but I’ll certainly take Lucy Liu, Barrymore and Diaz appearing on Zoom together to celebrate Demi Moore’s The Substance performance for Vanity Fair. During their conversation, Lucy Liu said this of Moore’s Oscar-nominated work:
I think I can speak for all of us—we are so proud of you. This performance, you’ve always had it in you and in all of the work that you’ve done. There’s so much vulnerability in the strength that you are able to put on camera. That moment of you taking the makeup off, to reveal the psychological toll of this kind of unattainable pressure from society of what beauty is and what aging is or what is commercial, what is so shin. It was done in a way where you really captured that rawness: that feeling of being insecure but also comfortable with yourself, but then realizing that other people aren’t comfortable with yourself.
Imagine having all the Charlie’s Angels in your corner? Cameron Diaz was also very affected by Moore’s work in The Substance as well, saying this:
All women, we are conditioned to be objectified—period. Whether we are movie stars [or not], it’s just every woman. Obviously it’s more extreme in our circumstances, because we’re projected onto a screen and literally objectified. We’ve had dolls made out of us. It’s just so innate. It’s so ingrained in us. We bow down to that. We serve that objectification. We try to meet its request in so many ways.
In The Substance, Moore plays a fictional Hollywood star named Elisabeth Sparkle who is fired from her aerobics TV show on her 50th birthday. While wrestling with no longer being valued in her industry, she decides to take a black market drug that allows her to create and be a “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of herself (played by Margaret Qualley) every two weeks. However, the drug leads to some complications in her life… to say the least.
With all of that in mind, the Mask star also applauded the way Coralie Fargeat’s movie for how it “shredded” what a motion picture about the film industry could be and did it in the most “audacious, violent, crazy way that you could possibly do it.” The conversation on the Academy Awards contender was stimulating as was the recollection of the bikini scene from Full Throttle.
How Demi Moore Reflected On The Charlie’s Angels Bikini Scene With Her Co-Stars
Along with Demi Moore getting some major props from her former co-stars for The Substance, Drew Barrymore also lauded the Brat Pack member for joining Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle years ago. That casting came right after the actress had walked away from acting for a time. By that time, Moore had a ton of big movies under her belt. Barrymore talked about how Moore was a “badass” for walking away “at the height of success and taken time for herself” to raise her kids before returning to the business. Moore then said this:
I went to just be with my kids, and then the first thing I did coming out of that was Charlie’s Angels. I was thinking about that because in [The Substance], it’s being reflected that she’s not as valuable. In [Full Throttle], we had this scene that [director] McG added, with me being in a bikini, which became this kind of big media interpretation—that ironically was attached to me, as if I was about my body versus it being just a part of the story that we were telling: this great cinematic moment of Cameron and I being on the beach. I felt more of the experience that my character [in The Substance] goes through in my 40s than I feel today. I didn’t quite fit anywhere. I wasn’t 30. I wasn’t 20, but I wasn’t what at that time people thought of as somebody 40. I felt very lost.
Amid her promotion of The Substance, Demi Moore’s bikini scene from the action comedy has come up a few times. The Oscar nominee recalled chatter around her being in a bikini for the 2003 movie felt very “heightened” due to all the talk about how she looked. In regard to the scene, Moore has also admitted that she had no idea it would spark “such a big conversation,” but felt like it was just because she was 40.
It’s so great to see Demi Moore getting some support from her former co-stars and having some solid conversations with them about The Substance, Full Throttle and the film industry as a whole. I know I’ll be rooting for her when the 97th Academy Awards air on Sunday, March 2, at 7 p.m. ET on ABC.
