Demi Moore Says ‘Of Course There’s Disappointment’ About Oscar Loss, but Mikey Madison Gave an ‘Incredible Performance’: ‘There’s More Work to Be Done’

Demi Moore is continuing to reflect on her awards season journey nearly two months after the Oscars, at which “The Substance” star competed for best actress against “Anora” breakout Mikey Madison.

At the Time100 Summit, Moore responded to claims that she “should have won the Oscar” and was asked whether she sees herself on the Academy Awards stage in the future.

“That would be nice. I can’t say I’d be mad at it,” Moore said cheekily about eventually winning Oscar gold. “But the question of ‘Should I have won?’ is certainly not the perspective of how I hold it. Because, I didn’t [win]. I really do subscribe to this idea that everything in life is happening for me, not to me.”

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Moore added, “That doesn’t mean there isn’t disappointment, pain, or that things go the way I would like. But when I look at it through that lens, it allows me to step back and say, ‘What is this trying to give me?'”

Moore was, by most projections, predicted to win the Oscar for best actress (she kicked off awards season by taking home the Golden Globe). “Of course there’s disappointment,” she said of her loss to Madison. “I also immediately recognize that there is something that is greater that I am to be in service to, even if I don’t know what that is.”

For Moore, one of the joys of awards season was spending time with the other nominees. “I had the pleasure of getting to know Mikey Madison and think she did an incredible performance,” Moore said. “It’s an odd thing for there to be a competition anyway.”

While Moore might have viewed an Oscar win as a moment of “completion” for her journey with “The Substance,” she now realizes, “The message is that there’s more work to be done. This issue is not complete.”

“I’m sorry to everyone who had hopes for me,” Moore continued. “Because I did feel a lot of collective disappointment that felt like it was even bigger than me.”

In a print piece in Time magazine published last week, Moore said she “didn’t feel gutted” when she lost the Oscar, and that she whispered to her manager, “I think it’s going to Mikey.”

“The Substance,” a gonzo body horror from director Coralie Fargeat, was nominated for five Academy Awards and won one, for makeup and hairstyling.

Next, Moore will star in Boots Riley’s film “I Love Boosters” alongside Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie and LaKeith Stanfield.