Margaret Qualley has enjoyed a breakout year, finally transitioning from star on the rise to bonafide A-lister thanks to her role as Demi Moore’s hot and Machiavellian alter ego in The Substance. Now, she’s sparked rumours she’ll be the next Bond girl after taking the lead in a dance tribute to the famous Hollywood character at the 97th Academy Awards.
Qualley donned a red dress, dancing with a group of suited up James Bond lookalikes while Blackpink’s Lisa performed “Live and Let Die.” Onlookers are taking it as a hint Qualley will be starring in the next 007 movie, cementing her place on the Hollywood A-list. Here’s everything you need to know about the multi-hyphenate It-girl.
Is Margaret Qualley A Dancer?
Yes. Margaret Qualley is a classically trained ballet dancer. While she spent a large portion of The Substance gyrating, she grew up hitting the boards and the bar at the North Carolina School of Arts. She also apprenticed at the American Ballet Theatre when she attended New York’s Professional Children’s School. Qualley quit dancing to pursue acting and modelling when she was sixteen and started working with Chanel. She is still an ambassador for the house and wears Chanel to all of her red carpet appearances.
Qualley hasn’t totally abandoned dancing though. She choreographed, co-directed and starred in the music video for the song “Tiny Moves” which appeared on husband Jack Antonoff’s album “Bleachers.” She said the performance was a “love letter” to her husband.”
Qualley found the intense choreography on The Substance set challenging. She told Entertainment Weekly the raunchy dance moves made her “too nervous” before shooting. “There’s a feeling when you’re in a dance class with a room full of dancers and everyone is watching you trying to learn the choreography — everyone already knew it, I was the only one that didn’t know it, Coralie [the director]was watching, it was one of my first days there,” she said. “I was just like, ‘I’ll be right back, I got this!’ I just went to the bathroom and started sobbing and [then] was like, ‘Do you think we could do this one-on-one for a while?’ It was really outside my comfort zone. I’m not a natural.”
She said the process was “brutal” to look back on.
What Did Margaret Qualley Say About Performing In The Substance?
Choreography wasn’t the only challenge Margaret Qualley experienced while filming The Substance. She described her physical transformation to play 80s sex bomb Sue, and a later, Sue’s more gruesome prosthetics-heavy transformation as confronting.
The actor followed a gruelling training regime to gain enough muscle to play Sue, Demi Moore’s troublesome doppelgänger. The naturally slight former model told The Sunday Times she had to wear prosthetic breasts for a nude shoot, quipping, “unfortunately, there’s no magic boob potion”. This wasn’t the end with the actor’s troubles with prosthetics. Without spoiling the film, in the latter half of the movie Qualley spends an extensive amount of time wearing prosthetics. The actor said that the prosthetics caused so much damage to her skin over the course of filming that it influenced how the film was shot.
“At the end, when they’re shooting up my skirt in the beginning credits, when it’s like palm trees all around they have all these long lenses from the bottom, that’s just because my face was so f**cked up by that time,” she told Josh Horowitz on the podcast “Happy Sad Confused.” “They couldn’t shoot my face anymore,” she said in the episode. Qualley said wearing the prosthetic suit gave her intense anxiety, “We would just go until I had a panic attack,” she told the LA Times describing the suit as a “torture chamber.”
Qualley said issues with her skin continued long after shooting and that she struggled with acne well into filming her next movie Kinds of Kindness. “You know the character that has all that acne? That was just my acne from the prosthetics,” she said, “it took me probably a year to recover physically from all of it.”
Who Are Margaret Qualley’s Parents?
While Qualley might be finally beating the nepo baby charges, her parents are famous. Qualley’s mum is actress Andie MacDowell and her dad is former model and rancher Paul J. Qualley. Her mum also briefly dated Dennis Quaid who would go on to play Qualley’s lecherous manager in The Substance.
In interview with The Sunday Times she gushed about her relationship with her mother, “She gave me permission to do whatever I wanted,” she said, “My mum grew up in the south and in a more conservative family… So she was really non-judgemental about my choices,” The two had the opportunity to play mother and daughter in the hit series Maid – although their on-screen characters had a far more fractious relationship.
What Movies Has Margaret Qualley Been In?
Qualley has appeared in blockbusters like Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood.
She’s also starred in her own critically acclaimed series Netflix series Maid, a portrait of a single mother in poverty, which was nominated for Best Limited Series at the Critic’s Choice Awards. Qualley was also nominated for a Golden Globe, SAG Award, and Emmy.
But, somehow, despite her fairy-like porcelain skin and bambie-eyed good looks, she has been a slow-burn presence in Hollywood.
Anyone whose seen Qualley on-screen will be unsurprised to hear she trained as a ballet dancer when she was young. She then modelled for labels like Chanel – a house with whom she has a longstanding relationship. She then made her acting debut in the 2013 drama Palo Alto.
Margaret Qualley And Jack Antonoff’s Relationship History
Margaret Qualley is married to Jack Antonoff, a music producer who has worked closely with Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar. The pair were first linked in 2021 when they were papped having a public PDA at an ice cream shop. Qualley told The Sunday Times that she met Antonoff at a party in New York in 2021 and the connection was instant.Referring to the somewhat bleak dating scene in New York she said, “I feel so lucky that I found him when I did.”
Both had already been linked to high-profile celebrities. Qualley had dated Saturday Night Live comedian (and serial boyfriend) Pete Davidson and then actor Shia LaBeouf. Meanwhile, Antoff had a long-term relationship with actor and writer Lena Dunham from 2012 to 2018.
Immediately following the split, rumours circulated that Antonoff was linked to singer Lorde, which the producer shut down.
In 2022 Qualley and Antonoff officially debuted their relationship at the 2022 Critics Choice Awards where Qualley’s series Maid was nominated for Best Limited Series. Qualley announced their engagement the same year posting a photo of herself flashing a sparkling engagement ring, with the caption “Oh I love him!” to Instagram.
Margaret Qualley married Jack Antonoff in August 2023. Qualley wore a chic plunging halter neck Chanel wedding dress and changed into a sheer puff-sleeved confection for the afterparty. She wore flat Mary Janes for both looks.
It was a A-list packed guest list with celebrities like Lana Del Rey, Cara Delevingne, Zoë Kravitz and Channing Tatum, and Taylor Swift, one of Antonoff’s closest collaborators, in attendance.
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