In Coralie Fargeat’s body horror masterpiece The Substance, Margaret Qualley plays Sue, the “more perfect” version of Demi Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle. She’s ambitious and loves to party and dance — in other words, Sue is a walking Charli XCX song, so it’s no wonder that Qualley listened to a lot of the “Sympathy Is a Knife” singer to get into character.
“It’s kind of wild timing the way that the universe works because we all just had the ‘Brat Summer,’ right? With Charli XCX. And I was listening to Charli as my ‘Sue’ inspo. Because she has like a lot of good kind of like ‘pump it up’ girl songs,” Qualley told Brut (it was an unintentional nod to the “Pump It Up” scene from the film). “I got that kind of Sue energy from Charli’s old music.”
The actress didn’t specify which songs of Charli’s she listened to, but considering her billboard pose, it was probably “Good Ones.” As for what Moore was listening to? “Mine was more silence,” she said.
If Qualley doesn’t get nominated for an Oscar, she should retweet Charli’s iconic “people don’t wanna see hot evil girls thrive” tweet.
You can check out Qualley’s interview with Moore for Brut here. Also, watch The Substance! It’s one of the best horror movies of the year.