Demi Moore reflected honestly on her career in Hollywood during a poignant speech on stage at the Golden Globes 2025, where she accepted the award for best actress in a motion picture – musical or comedy.

Stepping on stage to collect the award for her role in body horror The Substance – in which Moore plays fading celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle, who takes an experimental drug that creates a younger version of herself – Moore started her speech by noting that this was the first acting award she’d received in her whole career.

“Oh wow. I really wasn’t expecting that. I’m just in shock right now,” Moore started. “I’ve been doing this a long time, like over 45 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever won anything as an actor. And I’m just so humbled and so grateful.”

She continued by admitting the fears and vulnerabilities she’s faced as an actor in Hollywood.

“Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a ‘popcorn actress’ and, at the time, I made that mean that this [award] wasn’t something that I was allowed to have. That I could do movies that were successful, that made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged, and I bought in and I believed that,” she said.

Moore continued: “That corroded me over time, to the point where I thought, a few years ago, that maybe this was it. Maybe I was complete. Maybe I would – I’d done what I was supposed to do.”

She went on to explain that The Substance reignited her belief in herself.

“As I was at kind of a low point, I had this magical, bold, courageous, out-of-the-box, absolutely bonkers script come across my desk called The Substance. And the universe told me that you’re not done. And I am so grateful to [director] Coralie [Fargeat] for trusting me to step in a play this woman. Margaret [Qualley], for being the other half of me that I couldn’t have done without, for looking out for me.”

The Ghost actor ended her Golden Globes speech with a powerful note on the themes raised in The Substance.

“I’ll just leave you with one thing that I think this movie is imparting is, in those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough or pretty enough or skinny enough or successful enough or basically just not enough. I had a woman say to me, ‘Just know, you will never be enough. But you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.’

“And so today I celebrate this as a marker of my wholeness and of the love that is driving me and for the gift of doing something I love and being reminded that I do belong.”

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