'Comeback' queen Demi Moore 'has always been here,' says director

Demi Moore's Golden Globe best actress win for The Substance has, almost overnight, transformed the 1990s megastar into a seemingly unlikely favourite for the Oscars.

In her acceptance speech, the 62-year-old -- who once generated headlines as much for her love life and Vanity Fair covers as for her hit films -- said she had long been dismissed as a "popcorn actress," and had never "won anything as an actor."

But for Coralie Fargeat, the French director who also wrote Moore's new, blood-drenched body horror film, there is nothing surprising about the late-career reappraisal her leading lady is now enjoying.

"It was so moving to see Demi on that stage," Fargeat told AFP, the morning after Moore's big win.

The movie allowed audiences "to see who she is as an actress, and not project any more the stereotype that if you're beautiful, you can't be a good actress."

"It is being called a comeback. But she has always been here," Fargeat added.

Society's obsession with pigeonholing and pinning expiration dates on women is the core premise of The Substance.

In the film, globally distributed by MUBI, Moore's character Elisabeth is a fading movie star, who is abruptly fired from her hit TV fitness show as she turns 50.