When Coralie Fargeat’s first feature, Revenge, was released, horror fans, especially female horror fans, felt a new voice had arrived that was offering something fresh in the genre for female characters and expression. Fargeat has a unique vision and brings an ultra feminine aesthetic to the bloody often gritty world of horror. In her sophomore feature, The Substance, the writer/director not only goes bolder but certifies her place as a master of body horror.

The Substance is an essential film on what it’s like to be a woman. Fargeat sounds a fiery alarm on the bleak reality of society’s perception of a woman’s worth. Offscreen Central was lucky enough to speak with Fargeat about what inspired her to write The Substance, how the female existence ties to body horror, and much more.

Kenzie Vanunu: It’s such an honor to speak with you! Congratulations on the film! It’s truly such a special film and it really means so much to me and I’m sure so many others, especially women.
Coralie Fargeat: Oh, thank you so much! Thank you so much!

Kenzie Vanunu: The film brought out such a visceral reaction out of me and I don’t mean due to the body horror or violence, the pure emotions it brought out of me. I was radiating with anger and felt a deep sadness. So I wanted to ask what inspired you to start writing the screenplay?
Coralie Fargeat: Really what I had felt my whole life about how I had lived within my body, how I had been led to constantly judge it in a negative way. how I had been led to torture it in many way to try and make it look like the perfect with the beauty standards that were presented to me as being the only valuable option and I think at every age I kind of fought with something that I didn’t like, or that I felt embarrassed with.

Until recently, when I passed my forties, and was going towards my fifties, where I started really to have those violent thoughts like now, it’s over for me, like I’m not gonna be interesting to anyone. I’m not gonna have an existence again like and it was like so violent that I decided it was the right time for me to do something about all this, which I think has strongly shaped my relationship to the world, and I believe it’s the same for many women and I wanted to really free myself from from this, or at least like let it out like throw it out somewhere in an un-delicate, no control, not nice, not gentle way, which I think is the kind of opposite of where we are kind of asked to be.

Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah, I actually read that in your director’s statement, and it felt so familiar to me. I had a baby right before I turned thirty. So I was at this like, ‘I super hate my body and I’m turning this daunting age,’ like it felt so overwhelming just to manage that. I was really struck with how you were able to explore that while also having these like deeply comedic moments mixed in the film, it was so real to life.

Kenzie Vanunu: With your first feature Revenge, it mostly dealt with female rage through an external violence, but in The Substance, it’s self-inflicted violence. What made you want to explore that type of violence?
Coralie Fargeat: To me, they’re the both sides of the same coin, in fact. Because I think we really have to face in our life the external violence, which is more obvious. This is the the violence that is seen as a real aggression. But the face of the coin to me is really is the one that is generated by all the behaviors that are still in society. Our culture or representation are still in the very majority way, still kind of the same since the world has existed and it leads really to have this super strong inner violence that we develop because I do think that we are the product of what we’re exposed to. And if you live in a society that tells you that you have to be like this, you have to be like that. If you’re not like that, you’re gonna hate yourself. And you’re gonna think that something’s wrong with you.

And I think that this is a deeper layer. It’s a less obvious one, even if I think it’s a major one. So I felt I needed to feel strong with myself, and where I was as a filmmaker to be able to address this in a film. Revenge really helped me feeling good with who I was as a filmmaker. So, then I felt like now I feel strong enough to address those issues in a deeper level, the one that is more internal. And that is also more challenging on an emotional level to tell. Because I know that it’s something that’s gonna expose myself somehow. So yeah, that was kind of a new step I was ready to make, because Revenge had started to pave the way, and had also made me aware of my feminist thoughts. Before Revenge, this was not rationalized. I didn’t even know that I was a feminist. I was, but I didn’t even know it. And then, with the movie reception, I started to hear about it defined like that. I started to read a lot about the the those topics, and the my discourse shaped in a more conscious way regarding those issues, and so I was ready to now make a film in a more conscious manner for the second one.

Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah, it’s definitely an interesting pairing exploring those types of violent behaviors. Again, in your director’s statement, you mention how you don’t know a woman who hasn’t struggled with her body or hasn’t had an eating disorder. The film has a few scenes exploring eating disorders and as a woman who has struggled with an eating disorder, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this part of the mental battle of an eating disorder portrayed on screen so accurately before. The way Elisabeth has episodes from her eating disorder and Sue cannot even comprehend doing that to her own body, when Sue screams ‘control yourself!!’ I think many women have struggled with the ‘healthy side’ not understanding how we could do this to ourselves. So I wanted to just ask how you pulled these scenes off. 
Coralie Fargeat: Yeah, I think in both the script and the story in itself it was really the the idea to show the many different voices that we have that are talking to ourselves. One day it’s gonna fall on the couch and just eat in front of the TV, having no control at all. And the day after the other voice is gonna hate yourself for doing it and that’s exactly what happens with Elisabeth and Sue. Sue is the voice that you know hates the fact that Elisabeth didn’t manage to control herself and I think that those voices inside of us are so strong, they are so powerful, and they are really kind of bipolar. In a way that you can feel that it’s almost 2 different people that live inside you, and can totally change the way you feel with yourself.

You can feel good, and you can feel extremely bad. And showing that for real in another [physical] being, as the other voice, I thought was the most powerful way to kind of represent this battle. This kind of super violent conflict that we have within us, and whether it is towards the food, or towards judging herself for not being perfect. The fact that at the end Sue wants to kill Elisabeth because she hates what she represents and the external violence of it was really a way to kind of externalize for real all of this internal violence that we have within us regarding regarding those issues.

Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah, it was horrifying to watch, because I’ve had those conversations with myself so many times.
Coralie Fargeat: Oh, yeah.

Kenzie Vanunu: What makes me feel a bit of a connection to body horror is the idea of a woman’s existence sort of being its own version of body horror. We get our periods, the pain associated with them, then we give birth and eventually, menopause. In The Substance, it felt exhilarating and also depressing to see that explored, especially from a female filmmaker. From Elisabeth quite literally giving birth to Sue and the pain she’d endure to feel differently about her own body. What drew you personally to body horror and using it within the story of The Substance? 
Coralie Fargeat: Well, as you said, perfectly well, I think living with our body from the start is a really hard experience. The reality of our body, of the flesh, bone, and the blood, of everything is something that I think truly shapes and defines our relationship to ourselves, to the world, and that is almost not taken into account. This is not really addressed, all those things that you’re talking about. They’re super taboo, like, the pain during the period, the menopause, we’re supposed to hide all this, it’s supposed to not exist. We’re supposed to be in the world the same way that people who don’t have to experience that. And I think if we wanted to really kind of address those issues, we would take into consideration the specificity of what we have to go through with our body in our life. But I don’t think it’s the case.

And so for me, body horror was something that I naturally resonate so much with what we experience very much in our everyday life, and it’s a perfect symbol of the violence, of all the fears that we can project. Society asks our body not to change, for it to stay the same, to stay perfect, to stay sexy. Of course, it’s terrifying when your body is changing, because all day long we hear that it shouldn’t change, that it should still be the same. That’s the only way that you’re going to be appreciated or valued. So when the body actually lives its life of a normal body, it’s totally terrifying because we are not taught that it’s just normal, it’s just something that we should be welcoming.

I think there is a true violence in that, which is as powerful as other genre related topics, which are the fear of invasions, the fear of mutations, the fear to disappear. I think all these fears kind of super strongly live within ourselves, because what is expected from from us is something that is inhuman. It’s something that just cannot happen. So, when it happens to us like because we are human. We’re human beings, made of flesh, that’s gonna evolve. I think, yes, it’s a real horror movie, because you’re not prepared to welcome it in a way that is just life, like just the reality of a human being. So yeah, I think naturally, it’s a perfect genre to speak about those issues.

Kenzie Vanunu: I completely agree. I was so blown away by just the story of Elisabeth, watching it after experiencing all these issues with my own body. It was just an overwhelming viewing experience. Speaking of the female body, nudity is almost its own character in the film. The way both women are captured is so interesting to me. In the bathroom shots it feels like matter of fact, in complete silence, and strictly a personal intimacy. It’s like you captured exactly how I feel like I look at my own body alone in the mirror. Yet outside of the bathroom, in the outside world, they’re captured in a sensual and exaggerated way, especially Sue. Can you talk about the way you were able to frame the nudity in the film in such different ways?
Coralie Fargeat: Yeah! The intention was exactly what you mentioned. When I wrote this bathroom scene for Elisabeth, it was really the idea of talking about the reality of the real body. The bathroom was a very symbolical place, even in the set design, the way that it’s kind of white chamber, almost as a cocoon and it’s the reality of facing your body for what it is like when you’re looking at it when you’re with yourself, with no one else looking, what you’re seeing and how you judge it. It’s very silent. It’s very still, and there is so much violence in just the way you feel that Elisabeth looks at herself. I really wrote these scenes thinking about me, how I can look look myself, and I’m just facing the mirror. And it’s a place where it’s her, with herself, with the reality of of her body, not filtered by anything else. The projection that everything else around that make her feel so harsh with what she sees.

And the the body of Sue is the exact opposite. It’s as you said, it’s the body that is put it out in the outside world, and then who is shaped by a gaze of what is expected from it. It’s the place where it’s going to be looked at by the cameras, by the men, by the also internalized voice of Sue, who thinks that the way to be born again, and to have the attention again, and to have her place in the world is this hyper sexualized version of herself. And it’s the way where the body become pieces. You know, it’s an ass. It’s boobs. It’s like legs. It’s pieces that are here to be watched, to be almost consumed, to be exaggerated, because that’s also how I have felt at some point of my of my life, that, imagining that the only way to gain attention and to be interesting was, if I was hyper sexualized and I was like kind of desperate if I felt that I that I wasn’t or wasn’t enough.

That’s why all the camera placements are so important. I think it’s a place where your body and the relationship you have with your body is shaped by other gazes, shaped by the eyes of people who look at you, shaped by the eyes of how society has valued women for basically the pleasure of men. For them to look at them or to watch them dancing naked on stage. That’s basically in history, what has happened for thousands of of years. And so yeah, that was some kind of another jail that I think is framing the character because if she steps out of this perfect version of herself, she fears that she’s gonna disappear again. So the scene with the thing pops out of her [Sue], that is so scary for her, because it threatens her ‘perfect’ body. It’s like the kind of dark nightmare that we have, that everything that we don’t want other people to see is suddenly gonna bulge out.

So yeah, so there was really two different treatments of the nudity that were both saying something very different about the inner relationship with the reality of our body. And the how the body is seen in the public space, and how it’s the recipient of so many gazes that make it something that it’s shaped, almost without us.

Kenzie Vanunu: I completely agree. I saw Demi Moore did an interview where she said the film is about the male perspective of the idealized woman that we as women have bought into. That really resonated with me, especially on a rewatch of the film.
Coralie Fargeat: Yeah, exactly.

Kenzie Vanunu: I’ve told every woman in my life to go out and see this film this week.
Coralie Fargeat: Oh!! That is so nice, thank you.

Kenzie Vanunu: I think it’s one of the defining films on what it’s like to be a woman and I’m so thankful for it. What’s the one thing you hope women specifically take away from the film?
Coralie Fargeat: I would say that I hope it gives them a little bit of empowerment and liberation regarding those issues but also in the sense that for them to feel not guilty if they don’t feel good about themselves. Because I don’t want the movie to be a new injunction, that you have to feel good about yourself and make them feel guilty. Because I feel like the movie is also saying if you don’t feel good about yourself, it’s for a very good reason. It’s because everything around us makes you sometimes feel like shit, because you feel that you don’t fit. But you are not the problem. The problem is the outside world. And so I think, when you start to understand the mechanism of how it can generate this kind of obsessive thoughts and behavior. It’s the beginning. It’s the first step to being able to free yourself for some part from that. But it’s a process. It’s a long journey. So it takes time, and I don’t think you can totally succeed in an individual way. I think society has to change for making it possible for us to start also thinking differently. So I hope it’s going to open a lot of eyes and kind of make women seen. You know? What they believe in their everyday life recognized, seen, understood, and to me that’s the first step of the liberation. So, hopefully, then it leads to a change. But I know that the change cannot be immediate. So, here we need also self indulgence with us, with ourselves, that it’s a process towards a better relationship with your own image.

Kenzie Vanunu: For sure, I completely agree with you. I took the film as like I felt really seen. All these issues, I kind of kept to myself, because I was a little embarrassed to address them with my female friends. I was watching and thought like, oh, other women have these issues, and especially there’s such a power in seeing someone as beautiful as Demi Moore struggle with these things. It was really exhilarating, and, just, as you said, like a real liberation of my own frustrations with myself.
Coralie Fargeat: Yes, exactly!

Kenzie Vanunu: But I just wanted to say thank you so much for your time, and thank you again for all of your work. I think it’s so important. And I’m so excited for people to see this film, this weekend and just spend the rest of the year telling people about it.
Coralie Fargeat: Oh my gosh, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Thank you, it was so lovely talking to you.

The Substance is currently playing in theaters.
You can read our review of Fargeat’s film here.