After a lifetime of scrutiny, the actor has returned for a ‘grotesque’ feminist body horror about recapturing lost youth. She talks about no longer ‘chasing perfection’, living alone, and feeling truly free at 61
I first catch sight of Demi Moore crouching on the floor in a hotel corridor, coal-black hair fanned across her back. She’s talking in a peeping high voice, which is confusing: Moore’s husky pitch is her trademark. What I can’t see until I’m close are the tiny dogs she’s playing with. When I say tiny, Moore’s chihuahua, Pilaf, is a thing unimaginable until you see her. Thimble small. How-is-that-even-a- dog small. Moore is overseeing an introduction to Bruno, a puppy belonging to one of the comms team I’d met earlier and who was, until Pilaf, the smallest dog I’d seen. Bruno now looks like the Hulk. The dogs’ characters are compared, their habits, their fur; they snuffle each other, squeak and squelch (their version of barking). Finally, Moore scoops Pilaf from the floor – bye Bruno – and the little angel joins us for our interview. First on her lap, then on the PR’s lap, then investigating the sofa and my bag (don’t wee there, Pilaf).
Pilaf’s teensiness initially distracts me from noticing how Moore herself is fine-boned and delicate; poised like a Modigliani in her chair and so toned I can see taut bands of muscle sweeping from her clavicle. Her dark hair forms two straight varnished curtains that hang to her waist. She wears a structured brown dress and killer-red nail varnish and uses hand gestures so voluminous that if you witnessed our conversation with the sound off, you’d think she was describing a series of explosions.
