How Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley Were Connected Before Playing Versions of Same Character in “The Substance” (Exclusive)

“We felt like we knew each other,” Demi Moore tells PEOPLE of Margaret Qualley, her costar in Coralie Fargeat’s horror movie

Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley had a personal connection offscreen long before sharing one onscreen in their new movie The Substance.

Moore, 61, “hadn't met” her costar before shooting the buzzy body-horror film, she tells PEOPLE. But the two “absolutely have indirect connections.”

For one, Moore starred with Qualley’s mother Andie MacDowell in 1985 hit St. Elmo’s Fire. “I worked with her mother in one of my first films,” recalls Moore, adding that Qualley, 29, knew her daughters (Rumer, 36, Scout, 33, and Tallulah, 30, who Moore shares with ex Bruce Willis).

So before playing two versions of the same character in their new movie from writer-director Coralie Fargeat, says Moore, “I feel like we felt like we knew each other.”

Related: Demi Moore Admits She Questioned Her Career and If She Was 'Good Enough' Before Being Cast in Feud

Qualley agrees, quipping, “I'm like everybody else — I've been a big fan of Demi's for a long time.”

Moore’s 1997 movie G.I. Jane “is one of my favorite movies ever,” she adds. “I read her autobiography and I think Demi's one of those people where she's very open and warm, so she makes you feel like you know them right away. That was my experience.”

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In The Substance, Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, an actress turned TV aerobics star who uses an illicit serum to create a younger version of herself. That’s Sue, played by Qualley, who in her reckless pursuit of fame begins violating the substance’s rules in order to extend time as that younger self.

Related: Margaret Qualley Was Given Prosthetic Boobs to 'Endow Me with the Rack of a Lifetime' for The Substance

Of the movie, which won Fargeat, 48, a best screenplay prize during its Cannes Film Festival premiere, Moore says, “Looking at the circumstances, which is creating this kind of societal conditioning of women's value basically fading as they age, is kind of our setup."

The body issues and obsession with youth that The Substance explores can resonate with “everyone,” says Qualley. Fargeat is “utilizing Hollywood and actors to kind of exaggerate these characters… but I think we could all kind of have that same feeling.”

The Substance, which costars Dennis Quaid, is in theaters now.

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