How Dua Lipa & Beyoncé helped inspire Demi Moore’s Oscar-bait movie ‘The Substance’How Dua Lipa & Beyoncé helped inspire Demi Moore’s Oscar-bait movie ‘The Substance’

Demi Moore won a Golden Globe for her role in The Substance, which is expected to receive several Oscar nods when the nominations are announced Jan. 23. And it turns out that both Dua Lipa and Beyoncé helped inspire the look of the film.

In The Substance, Moore plays a 50-year-old movie star named Elisabeth who gets fired from her aerobics TV show due to her age. She then takes a drug called The Substance, which causes her body to generate a younger version of herself named Sue — played by Margaret Qualley — who then takes over the aerobics TV show.

In an interview with NextBestPicture, Emmanuelle Youchnovski, the film’s costume designer, says she looked to both Bey and Dua when she created the bodysuits Sue wears while hosting the show, wanting to give them a modern spin. 

“You know the video clip of Beyonce’s ‘Blow,’ where she had the colors, [do] you remember [that] one?” Youchnovski says. “I also took a lot of inspiration from Dua Lipa because she wears a lot of bodysuits, but the bodysuit, it’s metallic, it’s fuchsia, it’s neon. I took all the things of our pop culture.”

Youchnovski also says that Dua inspired the shapes of the bodysuits — specifically, she says she added cutouts to show “more skin” and make it “more Dua Lipa.”

Following her Golden Globe win, Moore has also been nominated for a BAFTA — a “British Oscar” — and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her role. 

 

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