Coralie Fargeat is based in Paris, but is in London for the Oscar nominations – the film she wrote and directed, The Substance, has been nominated for best picture, best director, best original screenplay, best actress (for Demi Moore) and best makeup (the prosthetics are really something). It’s the same story with the Baftas (minus best film), and Moore, of course, has already won the Golden Globe for her role. She accepted it with the memorable line, “Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a ‘popcorn actress’ …”
Fargeat is all smiles in the office of the production company Working Title in central London. I suppose I expected her to be more austere, but that’s the patriarchy for you: you can’t even make feminist body-horror without people expecting you to frown. That’s what society does. “It puts labels on things, and puts people into boxes,” Fargeat says. “If you are this, you can’t be that. Pretty girls should always smile. If you’re pretty, you can’t be gross. If you’re blond, you are stupid. We make fun of these things but they create representations that destroy us.”
