Demi Moore admits she thought ‘Ghost’ might be a ‘f—ing disaster’

Whether it’s dangerously spicy hot sauce or grotesque, genre-bending awards bait, Demi Moore isn’t afraid to take a risk.

While making her Hot Ones debut, the Substance star opened up about her decision to star in the 2024 gory body-horror film, which she has said had the potential to be “something extraordinary or an absolute disaster.” But she pointed out to host Sean Evans that it was hardly her first time taking a leap of faith with an unconventional project.

“It really means that it was holding something that was worth the risk,” Moore said of the movie, adding that she had very similar fears about Ghost, the supernatural romance she costarred in with the late Patrick Swayze.

“It had so many different genres mixed together that, truly, I thought, ‘This could either be amazing or a f—ing disaster,'” Moore said of Ghost. “Either way, it’s usually the kind of juice that says, ‘Step in. Take the risk. Roll the dice. Let’s see what happens.'”

The gamble certainly paid off: Ghost not only earned five Academy Award nominations — and ultimately scored two wins — but also emerged as a box office smash, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1990. To this day, it remains one of the most iconic roles in Moore’s oeuvre.

Though she was already a star coming off General Hospital, St Elmo’s Fire, and About Last Night, Ghost, she said, marked a turning point in her career, in part because it was so emotionally demanding. 

“Ghost scared the crap out of me,” Moore admitted when asked about the challenges of getting so vulnerable on screen. “In reading the script, I was so overwhelmed at the kind of grief that I was going to have to tap into. And I know there’s this kind of iconic thing about [crying out of] one eye — I didn’t plan that. I have no control over that. That’s just how it happened.”

The Jerry Zucker–directed hit followed a murdered banker (Swayze) using a New York City medium (Whoopi Goldberg) to warn his girlfriend (Moore) of a looming threat to her life. Along with cementing Moore’s fame and earning Goldberg her second Oscar, the film included one of the most parodied moments in movie history: the unforgettable pottery scene set to the Righteous Brothers’ iconic ballad “Unchained Melody.”

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“I still have my little pots that I made, which are pitiful,” Moore said while recalling the moment on a February episode of The Drew Barrymore Show. “They’re like the saddest-looking things.” She also joked that the scene came together pretty quickly after she met with Swayze, quipping, “He took his shirt off, and I was like, ‘Oh, got it. Get on behind me.'”

Moore recently reflected on the film in May when reacting to the news that Channing Tatum is planning a Ghost remake. While attending the Cannes Film Festival — where The Substance had its world premiere, earning a lengthy standing ovation and glowing reviews — Moore revealed that she isn’t opposed to seeing Ghost reimagined.

“Look, every story in some ways has already been told. The wonderful thing is the different way things can be reinterpreted,” Moore told Entertainment Weekly. “I think there are some films that often are better left not touched, and left, and then sometimes there are wonderful surprises in that reinterpretation.”

Watch Moore brave Hot Ones above.