By Lisa Armstrong
In the end, the pundits were wrong and the Best Actress Oscar wasn’t Demi Moore’s for the taking. But in many ways she had already won. Having more or less retired from Hollywood in 1996 at the age of 34, her role in The Substance, a genre-crossing satirical horror story, has led to the skilfully orchestrated “comeback” of the decade.
Moore, who in her heyday as a safe bet at the box office was never taken seriously as an actress nor seen as particularly warm or loveable, found herself in the running for every major award and very much rooted for. The combination has given her a visibility film actresses her age (62) could barely dream of two decades ago.
Demi Moore’s age defying appearance at the Oscars reinforces the expectation that actresses over 50 should maintain a youthful appearance.Credit: AP
She’s not the only “older” woman who’s been front and centre this awards season. Fernanda Torres, the 59-year-old Brazilian star of I’m Still Here, was nominated in the same category as Moore – an unthinkable turn of events five or six years ago, when the over-50 actress was still something of a token species.
Meanwhile, Meg Ryan, 63, and also on something of a comeback mission, and 79-year-old Goldie Hawn, each presented an award, although Hawn had to hand over to her co-presenter, Andrew Garfield, as she confessed she couldn’t read the teleprompter because of her cataracts. Isabella Rossellini, 72, who appears in the Oscar-nominated Conclave, walked the red carpet in blue velvet, a sartorial tribute (and flex) to the late David Lynch, who directed her in her breakthrough film, Blue Velvet, almost four decades ago.
Isabella Rossellini wore a blue velvet gown to the Oscars, in a nod to the late David Lynch.Credit: AP
If we cast an eye over the entire awards season, it gets better still. Nicole Kidman may have missed out on an Oscar nomination for Babygirl (some would say rightly so), but she was dazzling at the Golden Globes in January – and at the age of 57, when until recently almost every actress apart from Meryl Streep found it hard to get cast, is one of the most prolific actors in the world. Cate Blanchett, 55, and Michelle Yeoh, 62, were at the Globes too. Pamela Anderson, 57, who is on her own revitalised trajectory, was at the BAFTAs at which Dame Helen Mirren, 79, performed a starring cameo in the opening sequence.
Nicole Kidman in a backless Schiaparelli gown turned heads at the recent Golden Globes.Credit: AP
Compared with 20 years ago, when there appeared to be zero older women on the Oscars red carpet, this looks a lot like progress. Even 10 years ago, things appeared to be very different for actresses in their 50s. Reporting from the Cannes Film Festival in 2014, a Guardian journalist candidly shared their initial reaction to seeing Sharon Stone, one of the vanishingly few over-50 women on the red carpet that year.
Sharon Stone at this year’s Golden Globe Awards.Credit: Getty Images
“I ran through my thoughts very quick when I saw her in the red Roberto Cavalli dress, most noticeable for the bits that weren’t there – first was ‘Dear me, no’, my second was ‘Yes, why not?’ And between the two lay about 10 seconds of shame for thinking the first.”
There’s no byline on the article, so we don’t know whether the reporter was male or female. It doesn’t matter. Women are every bit as judgmental as men when it comes to appraising other women, if not more so because we’re far more practised at noticing every last detail.
Yet, since the body positivity moment that kicked in around 2020, overt “mutton dressed as lamb” criticisms are rarely aired in public. What happens in the privacy of the people’s minds is a different matter, however. That said, no one would dream of taking issue with Moore, Kidman et al for wearing those winched-in, cantilevered strapless dresses they’re so fond of – not when the acres of cleavage, shoulder and upper arm on display are so smooth and taut.
This is the crux of the Faustian contract between the mature actress and her right to thrive. Where Stone and her age-defying looks were the outlier in 2015, these days, she is almost the baseline. This isn’t an exaggeration. Stone, who, if she’s had any work done has had the best, is once again an outlier next to all those older actresses who have had very visible and not very subtle surgery.
Not that anyone cares to mention this any more – at least not in mainstream publications. Now beauty articles about older actresses extol their hydration and collagen levels without daring to mention Dr Scalpel. Jane Fonda looking like a 45-year-old at 85? Lots of water and plenty of cuddles with her Havanese.
The upshot is that weird surgery outcomes are becoming increasingly normalised and natural ageing is regarded as peculiar. This was almost the entire point (I think) of The Substance. For a real-life parallel of The Substance’s premise, look no farther than the disapproving comments lobbed from behind the battlements of social media at Isabella Rossellini for having the temerity to show up this awards season in loosely fitting “curtains” and wrinkles. People, this is what 79 looks like when it hasn’t been snipped and filled.
Then there’s Anderson, Blanchett, Yeoh and Naomi Watts (the latter’s not at many of the awards ceremonies, but out and about promoting her book on menopause), all of whom have spoken of their choice not to have surgery, looking beautifully, but not excessively, preserved regardless. We have a choice about how we age externally – at least we do if we’re rich, look after ourselves and are fortunate – and that has to be a good thing.
Cate Blanchett looking statuesque in Louis Vuitton at the Golden Globes (left) and at Cannes.Credit: Getty
Surgery isn’t the only option. There are some advanced facials that offer more than masks and stroking. Keren Bartov, a facialist to the stars, has become the pre-awards go-to for those in need of more than a gentle massage. Bartov tells me she uses up to five cutting-edge medical devices in each treatment to achieve the desired results, “including IPL [intense pulsed light]; RF [radiofrequency]; and infrared to stimulate collagen production, firm the skin and enhance radiance. Incorporating Lumenis M22 IPL technology improves pigmentation correction; Genao and TriLift treatments sculpt and refine the skin; while TriLift technology provides advanced skin-tightening and lifting, to create “a firm and fresh look”. Additionally, many of her clients use her new at home at-home gizmo, The Wand, “which combines radio frequency technology, infrared and red light therapy to deliver targeted heat deep into the skin’s layers, stimulating collagen production and boosting blood circulation to tighten, sculpt and enhance skincare absorption before the big night”.
It’s not just women who’d trade one of their ribs for a session with Bertov. Last week, pre-Oscars, alongside Moore, Zoë Saldaña, Carey Mulligan, Lily Collins, Ali Wong, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Paulson, Anna Kendrick, Gal Gadot, Olivia Wilde, Sia and Cara Delevingne, Bertov also treated Adrien Brody.
Adrien Brody poses with the leading actor award for The Brutalist at the BAFTAs. He is among the A-list clients facialist to the stars, Keren Bartov, has treated. Credit: AP
Some “work” creates an otherworldly aura of “agelessness”. Yet, the frocks are firmly welded in the past. Did you ever see such a parade of oldness? Talk about stiff joints. Trad Hollywood glamour is back, and if flawless execution is your thing, then it’s undeniably impressive. Many of the hourglass silhouettes from Oscars 2025 would have fitted right into Oscar 2005 and, with a little finessing (the corsetry’s much lighter now), 1955. They looked constricting and the opposite of fun then, and they still do.
But then, arguably the reason Hollywood can bring itself to tolerate and even celebrate older women – albeit with a hefty dollop of self-congratulation – is because it knows all too well the level of discipline and abnegation required, and because in so many respects, the over-50s now look like the under-40s.
At least they do to observers who have lost touch with what an un-worked-on 50-something human looks like. To those of us who haven’t quite forgotten, looking at someone who’s had obvious work done is a bit like having lunch with someone who’s got spinach stuck in their teeth. You don’t know them well enough to say anything. But might it not be kinder to have this all out in the open so that the rest of us understand exactly why They look so different from Us?
No hope of that when it seems almost impossibly hard for anyone to admit to having nips and tucks the way that Joan Rivers did way back in the 1990s. Is it because everyone’s having them, so it’s no longer considered noteworthy? Or is there still some residual shame? Together with the extreme thinness we’ve seen on the red carpets this season (AKA “Ozempicrexia”), what used to be admirable, aspirational self-discipline among the Hollywood elite appears in many cases to have tipped into unhealthy obsession.
“I definitely took some hard knocks, and it definitely wore on me,” Moore has said of her 30-year retreat from the spotlight. “And definitely I had a huge reluctance to step back in.” The question is, now she’s back, how long will she choose to remain?
Telegraph UK
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