ELLE’s 2024 Women in Hollywood Issue – Part Two

Cynthia Erivo
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Cynthia Erivo Is Not Afraid to Use Her Voice

For the Wicked star, every character is a chance to know herself more deeply.

 Cynthia on playing Elphaba in the Wicked film despite there never having been a full-time Black Elphaba on Broadway: “Why would that change for the film? I couldn’t even dream about wanting it,” Erivo says. “When you’re in this skin and you walk around, you are immediately an ‘other.’ It was a really wonderful experience to be able to step into this role, outside of my own skin, and into someone else’s, who has also been ‘othered.’ It’s important to know what it feels like. I hope that this shifts and changes things across stages.”

Cynthia on working with Ariana Grande in Wicked: “I’ve gained a sister. At this point, we speak almost every day. Both of us were blown away by how connected we were immediately. I remember the first day we got to come together. It was at [director] Jon M. Chu’s house, and Stephen Schwartz [who wrote Wicked’s music and lyrics for both the OG Broadway musical and the film] was over. He played some songs for us, and we sang together for the first time. It worked. It’s a very intimate thing to sing with someone. There’s a really beautiful dance—I need to follow you, you have to follow me. It was one of the most gratifying things to know that there was someone who was that open and available, because she was, and that meant I could be as well.”

“We also had a beautiful relationship offscreen. We had really beautiful conversations, some that were not easy, but that’s what makes relationships. Those hard conversations that you can have with someone that mean that you have to be vulnerable are the things that make you close.”

Cynthia on the women in Hollywood who have impacted her: “Michelle Yeoh, because of how active and physical she is, and because she’s been able to combine dramatic acting with stunts and physicality. Whenever I’m around her, I’m like the kid who’s at her feet, saying, “Tell me everything, I want to know everything.” She just has so much knowledge, and she’s so welcoming. Cicely Tyson. The daring, the wanting to keep playing, to keep expanding and trying different things—different characters, different styles. At one point, she was bald herself, and she made the decision to just shave it all off. I just love that, and I think it’s probably what inspired my decision to shave my head, which is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for myself. Barbra Streisand, because she’s a true Renaissance woman. To be able to direct, to act, to sing, to write, to do all of those things and do them spectacularly. She’s just one of those women who are totally themselves, and I’m in love with that. Viola Davis, just because she keeps going from strength to strength. She still has a hunger in her. These different women who have chosen to keep playing, keep trying, keep doing different things.”

Cynthia on the duet she’d love to do with Ariana Grande: “I feel like I want to find a Whitney [Houston] number and split it in two. ‘Run to You’ could be really beautiful together.”

Cynthia on the project that’s taught her the most: “It’s a toss-up between Harriet and The Outsider [the 2020 HBO miniseries based on the Stephen King novel of the same name]. On The Outsider, I had to use different tools for that character, and tools that I didn’t know that I had until I had to use them. That was a real up-and-down time for me while shooting, because it was not easy at all. The conditions were insane. We were in the middle of nowhere. We shot in a cave. I got terribly, terribly ill. It was bad, but I loved that character so much… Harriet really taught me about resilience, patience, and strength. And it also taught me about the lengths I would go for the characters that I play. I was willing to do whatever it took to make her sing. I was willing to do whatever it took to make her three-dimensional and real. I was willing to do whatever it took to make sure that I understood and everybody else understood what this character had gone through.”

Demi Moore
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Demi Moore Bares Her Soul

The Substance star has reached a state of enlightenment.

Demi on the brightly lit, low-angle close-up of her bare butt in the new film The Substance:  “It’s like, ugh,” Moore moans, “it bugs the s**t out of me.” She could have asked for it to be edited differently, but as much as she dislikes it—and really, show me a woman who would enjoy seeing such a shot of her derrière on the big screen—“I didn’t ask for any adjustments because I knew it was in service of something that was more important than me,” Moore says. “It felt like any hardship, any exposure of my own insecurities, would be worth it if I was part of bringing forward the conversation.”

“There was an incredibly liberating aspect to stepping into this really vulnerable, exposed place emotionally and physically. The film gave me the opportunity to look at where my ego was kind of running the show, where I was giving up my power, and it pushed me to find a little bit more gentility and acceptance of myself as I am.”

Demi on being told her body was a problem and struggling with an eating disorder when she was younger: “There is a lot of torment I put myself through when I was younger,” Moore says. “The perfect example is when I was told to lose weight multiple times. The producer pulled me aside. It was very embarrassing and humiliating. But that’s just one thing. How I internalized it and how it moved me to a place of such torture and harshness against myself, of real extreme behaviors, and that I placed almost all the value of who I was on my body being a certain way—that’s on me.”

Demi on not fitting in in Hollywood as she aged: Moore never left Hollywood entirely, continuing to produce films and perform bit parts, but when she was no longer young enough to be deemed sexy, yet still too hot to fit Hollywood’s image of a mom, she says she struggled to find dynamic leading roles that uplifted and excited her. “I wasn’t 20 or 30, but I wasn’t what they imagined 40 or 50 was either,” Moore says. “They didn’t quite know where I fit, and that’s not just something I made up—that was conveyed to me.”

Demi on the appreciation she has for her body now: “While we’re so focused on what we’re not, we miss out on the beauty of all that we are. The thing is, I do have love for my body, but it’s more about appreciation—I can really appreciate all that my body does for me now, not just how it looks,” she says. “And the more I appreciate the lines in the corner of my eyes—the more I can find beauty in the life that I’ve lived—the more my life has beauty.”

Demi on appearing in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle in a bikini at age 40: “I never imagined in a million years that the shot of me in Charlie’s Angels would become such a big conversation. But I was 40, which meant I shouldn’t have a body that was desirable—that’s what I challenged. I feel like we all have a role to play in life, to be of service, and for whatever reason, I feel like that has been something I’ve been called to do. But I don’t think it would’ve been such a big deal if I hadn’t been of an age that, at that time, it was already determined that you should look like s**t.”

Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore
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Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton Were Destined to Be Friends

For the two Oscar winners, a long-hoped-for collaboration in The Room Next Door feels meant to be.

 Tilda Swinton on how The Room Next Door brought her and Julianne Moore together: “The story of this film is these old, old friends,” Swinton says. “We could have been old friends, all these years. We’ve just made up for lost time. Now we’re old friends, even though we’ve only been together for a year.”

Julianne Moore on the pleasure she still finds in acting and how it brings her joy:  “I talk a lot about pleasure when I talk to people about my work. The thing that brings me back to it again and again, the thing that made me start doing it, was that it was really pleasurable for me, too. Sometimes with the arts, we’ll talk about how hard it is. “Oh my God, this part killed me. It’s so rough.” And I’m like, “Is it?” I don’t mean to say that the circumstances around any job can’t be challenging. But for me, the actual work of it, of acting, has always been about pleasure. And I really crave it and I crave the people that I do it with, and it brings me a lot of joy. I thought that I could be done with it at some point, and the surprise has been that I’m not. There’s always something to learn, people to learn from, things to explore.

Julianne Moore on whether there’s a particular movie of hers that resonates with audiences: “There are the Lebowski people. There are the Still Alice people. There are The Hours people. There are the Boogie Nights people. There’s the Crazy, Stupid, Love people. I think because my work has been across many different genres, you never know what it will be when they say, ‘I just want to say I really loved….’And the other day, somebody said to me, ‘Evolution.’ I was like, ‘Evolution? Oookay.’”

Tilda Swinton on if being part of the Marvel universe changed the number or nature of her fandom: “I’m sure it changed the nature. There was a very beautiful moment once years ago when Sandro and I were making a film with Erick Zonca in Mexico City. We were doing a night shoot and all these street kids came up and flocked around me, because they’d seen the [first] Narnia film. And I thought, ‘How amazing. Where had they seen it?’ Obviously, they’d stood in front of television shops and seen it through the window. And I remember Sandro saying, ‘Future Derek Jarman fan.’ So that’s how I feel. Maybe Marvel fans will come and see an Almodóvar film.”

Julianne Moore on whether there have been women who have mentored her in Hollywood: “When I was first on a soap opera [As the World Turns], there was an actress named Kathryn Hays who played the mother. And Kathryn, so lovely, so beautiful, had been on the soap opera and working in Hollywood a long time. I was brand- new on the show. I remember she would position my head in a certain way; if I did something so that the camera couldn’t see it, she would move my head. She was always very gently giving me advice or information, and I look back now and I’m like, ‘That’s a mentor.’”

Tilda Swinton on The Room Next Door potentially being the last film she makes: “I’ve always intended that each film would be my final one. It was not wanting to jinx anything because I have had such fun from start to finish. I always thought, ‘Well, that’s a good one to go out on. Let’s just quit while we’re ahead.’ And I feel it today. I feel The Room Next Door is the last film I make. Let’s see if anything else happens.”

Julianne Moore on the importance of gender equity in Hollywood and beyond: “Everybody talks about this in terms of what’s going on with pay equity and gender roles in Hollywood, but this is not endemic to Hollywood. We’re talking about global issues, huge cultural issues. Anytime you’re in a room full of women, you’re going to find that most of them are not being paid the same amount that the men are being paid, that they’re not employed to the same degree that the men are being employed, or that they feel they carry the majority of the responsibility. Women only received the right to vote in the last century—in the last century!—so this is a huge issue. You have to fight for equity in every industry. Those of us inside this industry might think [equity in entertainment] is important, but believe me, the rest of the world does not. So, it’s like we have an outsize sense of importance.”

Saoirse Ronan
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Saoirse Ronan Wants to Embrace the Mess

The Irish actress became an unlikely American everygirl. But at 30, she’s painting with a darker palette.

On playing a flawed character in The Outrun: “I haven’t played anyone like that since Briony Tallis [her character from Atonement]. And I was so ready for it. I felt confident enough in my ability, but also confident enough in who I was. I didn’t feel like I was being held down by a need to only play likable people.

Because I got to shape it creatively, I just gave less of a f**k about things being palatable. I really responded to Lena Dunham’s characters in Girls, who are arseholes sometimes, but we’ve all got the capability for that. I just started watching Hacks, and I’m like, “These girls are selfish. They’re self-involved. They’ve got massive egos, but they always have redeeming qualities.” We’ve gotten into this habit of filtering our personalities so much, reducing them to a line on Instagram or Twitter. And to be able to have the opportunity to go, “Look, this person can be fully formed and have sh**y qualities and also redeeming ones, and let’s honor all of that”—I’m at the point in my life where I’m like, “That’s what I want to see onscreen.”

On being pitted against other young actresses when she was coming up: “For a while, it was me and Dakota Fanning. And I would love for Dakota and I to work together. She’s one of the reasons why I got into acting in the first place, because when I was really young, she was working from such an early age, and I used to watch her stuff….So to feel like, “Oh, there’s space for all of us now,” where there’s still healthy competition, I think it’s great.”

On meeting Chappell Roan: “She was like, “Oh, people tell me that we look alike.” And I was like, “Honestly, whatever you want, Chappell. Yes, we can look alike. That’s fine.”

On being a private person with no social media: “I like that people don’t know my business. I just fundamentally believe that they don’t need to. I’m an actor, and the side of me that’s out there that I want people to see is in the work.”

“I also think I was very lucky that when I was coming up, it was right before social media really took off. I can see, with the slightly younger generation, how they’ve felt the pressure to have that presence. And to be honest, that is justified, because I’ve been in audition rooms where I haven’t gotten a role because I didn’t have enough Twitter followers or whatever.”

“And in the end, I was like, “Okay, well, I don’t want to be in a movie like that, anyway.” But when you’re coming up and nobody knows who you are, and you’re trying to make a name for yourself in the world that we’re in now, I can understand how you can give that too much importance. I was lucky that I just got past that. It doesn’t make sense to me why I would share my personal life with people I don’t know.”

The 2024 honorees grace the December 2024/January 2025 covers of ELLE, on newsstands December 3, 2024 and on ELLE.com.

Cynthia Erivo, Demi Moore and Saoirse Ronan photographed by Felix Cooper
Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton photographed by Collier Schorr

[Photo Credit: Felix Cooper/ELLE Magazine, Collier Schorr/ELLE Magazine]

• Collier Schorr
• Cynthia Erivo
• Demi Moore
• Editorials
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• Julianne Moore
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• Saoirse Ronan
• Tilda Swinton