Demi Moore’s Oscar Nom Morning: “Screaming,” a Ryan Murphy Phone Call, and a Bittersweet Reality Check

Demi Moore is officially an Oscar nominee. The Hollywood icon broke into the industry by making box-office hits and starring in films that won her collaborators awards (Ghost, A Few Good Men)—but as she said when she won the best-actress Golden Globe earlier this month, until now, she hadn’t ever won an award for her acting. Now, for her gonzo, moving, career-best performance in the body-horror satire The Substance, the actress is a front-runner to go all the way at the Oscars in a competitive best-actress field. Her film is also nominated for best picture, director, and screenplay. (The latter two both went to filmmaker Coralie Fargeat.)

on the Little Gold Men podcast, the role required her to look inward, to confront vanity, to dig deep as she took a massive leap into the unknown. “I had a pretty good idea of the extreme nature of and style of [Fargeat’s] storytelling that pushed beyond reality, but was grounded in a sense of reality,” she told me back then. “You cannot prepare, though, for blood, and your head being smashed into a mirror.”

Less than an hour after her Oscar nomination was announced, I caught up with Moore over the phone.

Vanity Fair: Congrats, Demi!

Demi Moore: We did a little screaming here with my dogs, my daughter on FaceTime, but she’s now here and I have two who are away. And yes, I’m screaming. I think I was still in shock, and only now am I starting to feel calm. I have Ryan Murphy calling me on the other line. I’ll have to call him right back.

Set the scene for me. Did you know you were going to watch? Did you feel all the nerves this morning?

I definitely felt nervous last night, but then I got quite distracted and really grounded in what’s real—because then a new fire broke out not too far from my house. It just dropped me into another reality. But I did set an alarm to wake up so that I wasn’t half asleep. [Laughs]

I am curious, since you mentioned it, how you feel about the Academy moving forward amid everything going on in LA. I am glad to hear you’re safe, but it’s a strange time for all this exciting news, right?

Obviously it’s a very sensitive time. I think there’s still the importance of carrying on. You see how important this is to our community, and what this represents for our community. It is the culmination of all of the hard work, and I’m just so in awe of how our community has come together in this time. It’s beautiful to see how all of the different organizations are stepping up to make everything that we’re doing in honor and in support of what has occurred—because it is beyond devastating. And a little joy is okay. We need that.

I wanted to ask you a little bit about the film overall, and what an incredible embrace Coralie got alongside you. What did it feel like to see those nominations for best picture and director?

For me, it’s for all that the film represents. There’s so many aspects of a win that has already taken place in the recognition of this genre, of this film. It is a marker of a shift, and a door opening of other possibilities for so many other filmmakers and artists. The recognition really feels like it’s much bigger than me.

“Marker of a shift” might apply for you as well—for your first nomination to be for this movie in particular. It’s pretty sweet, right?

It is sweet! It’s sweet. I really feel so humbled, and knowing that this vote came from my peers is even more sweet. The first round for the nomination is my fellow actors, and that really just is deeply humbling.

What has the last month been like for you, since the Globes? Have you been able to take stock of it all? Things changed in our city so dramatically, so quickly after that.

Yes and no—because I had one day to really have that before everything changed, and I was evacuated. I had no power. It’s been a whirlwind because we really are experiencing an incredible contrast right now. To have such a high, and then to be reminded of what’s really important.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.