Amber Tamblyn reveals she had ear-pinning surgery at age 12 after booking first TV role

Amber Tamblyn reveals she had ear-pinning surgery at age 12 after booking first TV role

The actor-director waxes poetic about Demi Moore's "The Substance" in a new op-ed.

In an op-ed that waxes poetic about Demi Moore's sci-fi horror The Substance, actress and director Amber Tamblyn revealed that she underwent ear-pinning surgery at the age of 12 after booking her first TV role.

Titled "This Hollywood Horror Film Hit Close to Home" and penned for The New York Times, Tamblyn's essay recounted her ears that "stuck out like big butterfly wings" as a little girl. "Some kids at my school in Los Angeles would make fun of them, and I’d often stare at myself in the mirror wishing my ears would lay flat against my head," wrote Tamblyn.

Related: Demi Moore's dog Pilaf still recognized her through The Substance's twisted prosthetics: 'She always knew who I was'

"Once I knew millions of people all over the world would be judging me on their television screens, not just on a playground, that knowledge changed everything for me," she wrote. It was around that time that Tamblyn wrote a "poem about the kind of aesthetics I was seeing in the entertainment business," namely, the lengths women go to in order to stay young and desirable.

That poem, Tamblyn noted, "now seems like a description of a scene from The Substance."

<p>Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty</p> Amber Tamblyn

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty

Amber Tamblyn

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

From director Coralie Fargeat, the film stars Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle, a celebrity who turns to a black market drug that temporarily creates a younger version of herself after she turns the big 50. Paralleling her experiences to that of the fictional Sparkle's — including the time she overheard an agent describe actresses over the age of 30 as "hell on earth" — Tamblyn noted that her experiences — and the one in the film — "are not just Hollywood stories."

"These are universal realities for any woman, no matter her background or profession," noted Tamblyn. "The subtle messages of sexism are passed down to us as generational wisdom, almost from birth. As little girls, we are taught to value the worth of what our bodies can grow up to be, and then we spend a lifetime in debt trying to achieve it. There’s plastic surgery, yes, but there’s also the tenure of self-torment that teaches us that nothing we say, do, weigh or want is ever right — it can only be made less wrong."

"I’m not saying that plastic surgery is bad or that everyone who elects to change their bodies regrets their decision — my 12-year-old self included," Tamblyn prefaced, adding, "But Elisabeth Sparkle is a warning to all of us about what we might be willing to destroy in the name of desirability; about the monsters we might be willing to become in pursuit of perfection."

<p>Christine Tamalet/Courtesy of TIFF</p> Demi Moore in 'The Substance'

Christine Tamalet/Courtesy of TIFF

Demi Moore in 'The Substance'

Related: The Substance stars, director explain the film’s beautifully gruesome ending

Now the age of 41, "I am quite content with the writer, actress and artist I’ve become — encroaching crow’s feet, chin hairs and all," she quipped. "But I’m also not immune to wanting to feel beautiful and desired, and indulging in that need. I don’t apologize for what I’ve done, or for what I haven’t. My relationship to my body has changed, healed even, as I’ve become more protective, compassionate and honest."

The message in the film for women, Tamblyn added, "is clear": "That sometimes, if we’re not careful, our commitment becomes the consequence. And there can be an untapped, collective power in not giving up on not giving in."

The Substance, in theaters now, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and earned a 13-minute standing ovation. Moore previously told Entertainment Weekly she considered stepping away from acting before Elisabeth came along.

"There hasn’t been a project or a role that has come along that has been this dynamic for me to really dive into and sink my teeth into,” said Moore. “I went through a period of even questioning whether this is what I should still be doing. In the last four years or so, I felt that it was a personal question that I wanted to explore and see. Was this where I should be putting my energy? When you plant seeds, you wait to see what grows.”

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.