Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Margaret Qualley Reveals It Took A Year To Recover From Acne Caused By 'The Substance' Prosthetics

Margaret Qualley
Taylor Hill/FilmMagic/GettyImages

The actor revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that her face had to be cropped out of some shots at the end of the film shoot due the terrible acne she developed from the facial prosthetics.

Actor Margaret Qualley opened up about the consequences of repeatedly applying facial prosthetic pieces to prepare for scenes in the body horror thriller The Substance.

The film, written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, follows aerobics star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) who has aged out of the business and subsequently takes the titular black market serum that generates a younger version of herself named Sue (Qualley) and experiences a career revitalization.


However, all good things come at a hefty price, and the movie leads to the talked-about gory film finale that makes the prom scene in Carrie look like a water balloon fight.

Underneath all the blood and gore, The Substance essentially conveys themes of toxic female beauty standards in Hollywood, explores the destructive nature of rivalry among women, and highlights the struggle for identity and self-worth.

At the insistence of Fargeat, who resisted using CGI, the film mostly relied on practical effects, which meant the actors had to don silicone prosthetics glued directly to different parts of their bodies, including their faces.

Moore, who won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy as the star of the film, revealed it took almost ten hours to transform her face and body as "Gollum" for some of the graphic scenes and roughly two hours to remove up to 14 pieces of prosthetics from her face alone.

Now, Qualley shared the damage her skin suffered from the process of prepping for the climactic scenes for The Substance.

On the latest Happy Sad Confused podcast, the 30-year-old daughter of actor Andie MacDowell told Josh Horowitz that her face had to be cropped out of certain scenes by the end of filming due to developing "bad acne from the prosthetics," the result of which took "a year to recover, physically."

You can watch a clip from the podcast interview here.

Warning: NSFW language.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

Laughing about it in retrospect, Qualley recalled:

"When they’re shooting up my skirt in the beginning credits when 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'ked up by that time that they couldn’t shoot my face anymore."

Despite the unappealing skin reaction, Qualley said it worked for one of the four characters she played in her next film, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness.

"You know the character that has all the acne?" she asked Horowitz, and continued, "Like, that was just my acne from the prosthetics. And I was, like, 'Oh, this is actually kinda perfect.' "

Her anecdote left social media users wincing.

Qualley posted a behind-the-scenes photo of herself on the set of The Substance showing her character transformation as "Monstro Elisasue" for the movie's bloody climax.

Warning: Graphic


Fans didn't recommend those with weak stomachs see The Substance.

@isimolady/Instagram

@isimolady/Instagram

Others raved.

@isimolady/Instagram

@isimolady/Instagram

@isimolady/Instagram

@isimolady/Instagram

In a separate interview with USA Today, Qualley said the makeup process for The Substance was "torture."

She continued:

"I had this awesome team of prosthetic artists that put it on me and took it off of me and got me through the day and made me laugh a couple of times while I was just on the brink of panic.”

It took about six hours for Qualley's transformation as Monstro, which involved wearing a body suit in addition to applying the facial prosthetics to film the Monstro scenes, which took eight days.

“I only have one eye. I can't hear anything. I can't move my arms," she explained of the physical limitations resulting from her suit.

"I've got these retainers in that are like too huge, they just kind of cut everything."
“It was grueling to embody. But the purity of the soul at that moment was so refreshing because I'd been playing (Sue) for four-and-a-half months by that point, who was really hard to relate to. Like really soulless, man.”

She also told Collider:

"My problem was I had to cry while I had the monster costume on."

"At a certain point, you're just swimming—there's like a layer of tears and snot inside your prosthetics, and they're just trying to reglue it down," she added.

More from Entertainment/tv-and-movies

Ted Cruz; Kelvin Sampson
Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images; Alex Slitz/Getty Images

Houston Fans Livid After Ted Cruz 'Curse' Strikes Again At NCAA Basketball Championship

In 2013, 2016 and 2021, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz was labeled the most hated man in Congress—by members of his own party. In 2023, Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz replaced him as the "most hated."

In a 2016 CNN interview, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said:

Keep ReadingShow less
Harriet Tubman
Library of Congress/Getty Images

National Parks Website Restores Harriet Tubman Photo To 'Underground Railroad' Page After Backlash

Following significant backlash, the National Park Service restored a previously-erased photo of Harriet Tubman from a webpage dedicated to the history of the Underground Railroad, in which she led 13 missions to rescue enslaved people.

A spokesperson said the changes were not authorized by the agency's leadership.

Keep ReadingShow less
screenshot from Fox News of Jackie DeAngelis and Tommy Tuberville
Fox News

Tuberville Now Claims 'Entire Men's Teams' Are 'Turning Trans' To Play Against Women

Alabama Republican Senator Tommy "Coach" Tuberville appeared on Fox News Sunday to again spread unhinged misinformation about transgender athletes.

Speaking with guest host Jackie DeAngelis, Tuberville stated:

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot from Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver/YouTube

John Oliver Epically Calls Out Awkward Truth Behind Former NCAA Swimmer's Anti-Trans Tirades

On Sunday's episode of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, the outspoken host devoted the entire program to the attack on trans girls and women who play sports by the GOP.

Oliver began the program saying:

Keep ReadingShow less
man in front of computer code
Chris Yang on Unsplash

Conspiracy Theories That Seem Believable The More You Look Into Them

We tend to think of conspiracy theories as a phenomenon of the digital age. But the internet and mobile devices only allow them to be created and spread faster.

Conspiracy theories have likely been around as long as human civilization has. They are, at their root, just another form of rumors and gossip.

Keep ReadingShow less