“Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me I was a ‘popcorn actress’,” a tearful Demi Moore told the Golden Globes this month when she picked up the award for Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy for her role in Coralie Fargeat’s satirical body horror, The Substance.
You might argue the movie was really more of a drama – regardless, Moore’s now dead cert to win the Oscar for her performance as a fading Hollywood star-cum-Quasimodo.
The Substance follows Elisabeth Sparkle, a fading movie star who reaches new lows after being sacked from her TV fitness show. Desperate to cling to her youthful looks, Sparkle turns to an illicit drug called The Substance, which comes at a deadly cost.
The ensuing chaos is a gnarly, Dorian Gray-style fable for the Ozempic generation – but it’s also a story close to home for its leading lady.
Moore burst onto US screens in the 1981 soap opera, General Hospital, and quickly became one of the 1980s and 1990s most recognisable stars with hits including Ghost, Indecent Proposal and A Few Good Men.
But her critical acclaim waned in the late 90s, starring in a run of commercial duds, like 1995’s The Scarlet Letter. Although in 1996, she became the highest paid actress in history, taking home $12.5 million for Striptease, it became one of the biggest flops of the decade.
Into the 2000s, and Moore had gained the reputation as a “bad movie” actress, featuring in a run of duds from Passion of Minds (2000) to Half Light (2006).
A retreat from acting coincided with high profile bust ups with long term husband Bruce Willis in 2000 – and later Ashton Kutcher in 2013 – leading to constant attention from tabloid press. She became relegated to the status of a celebrity, known for her looks and relationships more than her acting chops.
Then came The Substance and Elisabeth Sparkle — a role seemingly crafted for Moore and her own story.
Her experiences of aging within the savage system of Hollywood and its oppressive beauty standards is distilled into Sparkle’s character, making her performance have the uncanny ring of truth.
Hollywood has always loved a comeback story, and there’s a fascinating irony to it: by taking on roles that hint at their own struggles or failures, actors like Moore are often able to reclaim acclaim and respect, proving their enduring relevance.
This phenomenon isn’t unique to Moore—it’s a recurring pattern in the industry, where art imitates life, and life, in turn, fuels great performances.
So, to toast Moore’s success back at the top of film–where she rightfully belongs–here’s a list of five other times Hollywood cast actors in roles that mirrored their lives:
Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl (2024)
An icon of Hollywood, Pamela Anderson was never taken seriously as an actor. Like Moore, she knew a thing or two about being objectified by the media, having found fame running in slow motion on a beach for her role in Baywatch.
Not to mention her sex tape with her husband Tommy Lee, which was leaked by her electrician Rand Gauthier and controversially adapted into a TV show by Hulu in 2022, something she later described as “crushing”.
But The Last Showgirl is now being praised as a career-best performance for Anderson, who finally got her teeth into a serious drama.
Playing an aging showgirl in Las Vegas called Le Razzle Dazzle, the themes of fading beauty and the leering male gaze dovetailed seamlessly onto Anderson’s own life. This isn’t a mere coincidence. When Gia Coppolla watched Anderson’s Netflix documentary Pamela: A Love Story, she realised she’d found her perfect showgirl and stopped the casting process for the film entirely.
Michael Keaton in Birdman (2014)
After starring as Batman in Tim Burton's early 1990s films, Michael Keaton's career declined to supporting roles and B-movies like Jack Frost and First Daughter.
This was until Alejandro González Iñárritu cast him in Birdman as Riggan Thompson, an actor haunted by his past superhero role who seeks redemption through a Broadway show, featuring a brilliantly antagonistic Edward Norton.
The choice of Keaton proved perfect – both he and Thompson were actors defined by superhero roles who sought artistic legitimacy. His raw performance earned an Oscar nomination and revitalised his career, leading to starring roles in Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight in 2015 and beyond.
Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler (2008)
Mickey Rourke missing out on the Oscar for The Wrestler could be the greatest robbery of the 21st Century.
Rourke had a hugely promising start to his acting career in the 1980s and worked with some legendary directors like Francis Ford Coppola in Rumble Fish. He was also a professional boxer, boasting an impressive 6-0 record, but sustained facial injuries in the 1990s that hindered both his sports and acting career.
By the 2000s, he began to rebuild, landing a role in Sin City, but it was the leading part in The Wrestler that marked his triumphant return.
Rourke plays an aging fighter, Randy “The Ram” Robinson, who’s trying to recover his life after a career-ending injury. The role mirrored Rourke’s own physical struggles, evident in his raw and gut-wrenching performance.
Not many lines in cinema are quite as hard hitting as the misty-eyed giant’s trembling words: “I’m an old broken down piece of meat!”
Judy Garland in A Star Is Born (1954)
The most tragic entry on this list (and not quite a mirror-up-to-nature as a retrospective, through-the-looking-glass moment), Garland was reaching the end of her acting career when she was cast in A Star Is Born.
As one of the faces of the Golden Age of Hollywood and that of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Garland’s stardom had faded by the time George Cukor produced the film, which has been adapted twice since 1956. The tale of Garland’s struggles is well known, gripped as she was by a lifelong amphetamine addiction encouraged by the studios from a young age.
In the film, she plays a rising musical star who eclipses the talent of her lover and mentor–played by James Mason, a successful musician in decline. There’s a painful irony watching Garland’s performance today, knowing her turn as a rising star was in fact a swansong to her own career.
Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Gloria Swanson was one of the most recognisable faces of silent cinema in the first half of the 20th Century, starring in Queen Kelly, Tonight or Never, and Three For Bedroom C. But roles dried up for the silent era icon as Hollywood shifted to films with sound, or “talkies”: a change in the medium that put many silent film actors out of work.
Swanson’s character, Norma Desmond, was also an actor in her twilight years wanting to make one last picture. The casting transformed Sunset Boulevard into both a critique of Hollywood and a semi-autobiographical portrait of a bygone era.
While Swanson publicly denied comparisons between herself and Desmond, their parallels place her firmly on this list. Swanson brought tragedy and authenticity in spades to her character, particularly in the scene where she famously declares: "I am still big: it's just the pictures that got small!"
