When asked about her reaction to industry peers saying she should’ve won an Oscar at the 2025 Academy Awards, Demi Moore revealed at Wednesday’s TIME100 Summit that that’s not the way she thinks about what happened.
“I really do subscribe to this idea that everything in life is happening for me, not to me,” she told TIME editorial director Lucy Feldman while onstage in New York City with her micro Chihuahua dog Pilaf. “That doesn't mean there isn't disappointment or pain. But when I look at it through that lens, it allows me to step back and say, ‘What is this trying to give me?’”
Moore, 62, was nominated for her first Oscar earlier this year for her role as aging star Elisabeth Sparkle in director Coralie Fargeat's body-horror hit The Substance, but ultimately lost the Best Actress race to Anora lead Mikey Madison—whom Moore noted delivered “an incredible performance.”
Madison’s somewhat unexpected win came in the wake of Moore taking home the Golden Globe for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy in January and stating in her acceptance speech that it was the first real award she’d received in her more than 45 years in Hollywood. However, while she shared that winning the Oscar would’ve felt like a “completion” to what started when The Substance premiered to rave reviews at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, she believes there’s a reason she came away empty-handed.
“Clearly the message here is that there's more work to be done and that this issue is not complete,” she said. “And I'm sorry to everyone who had hopes for me, because I did feel a lot of collective disappointment that felt like it was bigger than me.”
As for why The Substance struck a chord with so many people, Moore attributes the film’s impact to its "humanness."
“It touched on that place within each of us where we can be harsh or almost cruel and violent in our self-judgment. And I think in that way, it just resonated so deeply,” she said. “It's what certainly resonated with me when I read the script. I mean, there’s the obvious aspects of it dealing with aging and societal perspectives that have limitations. But for me, that was the least new information that was being shared.”
When it comes to her own approach to aging, Moore explained that she views the process of getting older as an evolution rather than an ending. “I’ve been thinking recently about this idea that aging and being old are not the same thing, and somehow we've confused that,” she said. “Aging actually is a tremendous gift. You could not pay me to be 21 again, as good as it might sound. It was torture. And to be where I'm sitting today, it’s such a peaceful space of acceptance and freedom that I would not change.”
---
The TIME100 Summit convenes leaders from the global TIME100 community to spotlight solutions and encourage action toward a better world. This year’s summit features a variety of speakers across a diverse range of sectors, including business, health and science, AI, culture, and more.
Speakers for the 2025 TIME100 Summit include human rights advocate Yulia Navalnaya; Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; comedian Nikki Glaser; climate justice activist Catherine Colman Flowers; Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, and many more, plus a performance by Nicole Scherzinger.
The 2025 TIME100 Summit was presented by Booking.com, Circle, Diriyah Company, Prudential Financial, Toyota, Amazon, Absolut, Pfizer, and XPRIZE.