Demi Moore Did Not Want to Be Defined by the Brat Pack

Sometimes, all it takes to book your breakout role is a hot ride—at least, if you’re Demi Moore. The iconic actor shared how it all began in a Vanity Fair’s Career Timeline ahead of her latest film The Substance, which hit theaters on September 20. Moore takes a trip down memory lane in this video, recalling her experience shooting memorable films like St. Elmo’s Fire, Ghost, and Indecent Proposal.

Moore was actually leaving an audition for a John Hughes movie when she got cast in her breakout role in Joel Schumacher’s seminal ’80s flick St. Elmo’s Fire. “I might have been driving a motorcycle,” says Moore, when Schumacher spotted her out of a window, tracked her down, and asked her to audition for the role of international banking student and party girl Jules. Ironically, Moore starred in St. Elmo’s Fire with John Hughes regulars like Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Mare Winningham, and Ally Sheedy, who made up Hughes’s infamous Brat Pack. “Nobody wanted to be called a brat. It wasn’t trendy or popular,” says Moore. “It felt like it diminished us, or that we were less serious. I think that it spurred me to keep moving forward and just not be attached to it—almost as if that weren’t going to define me.”

And define her it did not. Moore went on to chart her own path, taking a big swing with Ghost, a supernatural romantic thriller about love and loss. “Conceptually it was a comedy, a thriller, and a romance,” she said. “And I thought this could be amazing, or it could really be a disaster. And that was really exciting.” Luckily for Moore, Ghost took the former route and was an instant classic, becoming the highest grossing film of 1990 in the domestic box office and earning five Oscar nominations. In the video, Moore recalls the first time she met her costar, the late Patrick Swayze, and how taken she was by by his “beautiful combination of virility and strength, with gentility and sweetness.” Although Ghost was a critical and commercial success, it also allowed Moore the space to process loss in her own life. “I had already experienced the loss of my father, but not really experienced it in a way that was healing and uplifting,” she says.

After Ghost, Moore continued to make interesting and compelling choices, starring in the indie Mortal Thoughts, Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men, and, of course, the scandalous erotic drama Indecent Proposal from director Adrian Lyne. “Knowing there were a lot of love scenes, the challenge was that it was done, not just tasteful, but appropriate to the relationship,” says Moore. She recalls coming up with the idea to approach the love scenes in a less prescriptive fashion than was usually done in those days. “Instead of going ‘we can have this much nipple, we can have this much, you know, butt….’ To me, I would be showing up to scenes and still be in my head, instead of being free to really be in the emotional exchange.” Moore recalls asking to be “true collaborators” with Lyne and requesting to view the cut of the intimate scenes when it was all said and done to see if there was anything that was a bit too much for her liking. Ultimately, she was happy with the results: “In the end, I didn’t ask for anything.”

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