Demi Moore almost lost role in “St. Elmo’s Fire” to Madonna after showing up ‘drunk and high’ to fitting

Demi Moore was nearly replaced by Madonna in St. Elmo's Fire.

Director Joel Schumacher allegedly gave Moore an ultimatum: Get sober or get fired.

Moore chose to enter recovery and had a 24/7 sober companion on set.

Demi Moore had to shape up in order to keep her role in St. Elmo's Fire .

Otherwise, director Joel Schumacher would replace her. Troubles on set had begun a couple of weeks before shooting, as costume designer Susan Becker had alerted him to the fact that Moore showed up to a fitting "drunk and high."

"Joel and [producer] Lauren Shuler [Donner] met with Demi and what Joel told me, he told her is, 'Go kill yourself on someone else's movie,'" Carl Kurlander, the film's co-writer, said on the Thursday episode of Reality Life with Kate Casey , noting that Schumacher had his own experiences with addiction. "And Lauren Shuler Donner, God bless her, worked out a plan with Joel, saying, 'Look, if you can clean yourself up in 10 days you can be in this movie.'"

Entertainment Weekly reached out to representatives for Moore for comment.

In the meantime, the production needed to be ready with a backup plan. While he considered several candidates to play Jules, including some existing cast members like Jenny Wright, Schumacher apparently had his eyes set on Madonna.

"Joel had met Madonna. And he came back and he said, 'This girl is going to be the biggest star in the world. I could just feel it,'" Kurlander said. "And Joel was all ready to offer the part to Madonna."

But Moore was not going to give up her chance to be in the 1985 film. She got a sober companion and began attending AA meetings, proving to Schumacher that she was serious about her recovery.

"She clearly had more than just cleaned up," Kurlander said.

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Moore has been open about her struggles with substance abuse in the past. In her 2019 memoir Inside Out , she wrote that by the mid '80s, "my appetite for cocaine had escalated into a dependency."

And in the Brats documentary in 2024, which documented the rise of the Brat Pack in the 1980s, Moore shared her perspective on having a sober companion during St. Elmo's Fire. She said that director Schumacher had "stuck his neck out for me" by allowing her to get better and stay in the movie.

"We were all just beginning," she said of herself and her costars. "I didn't have anything to really warrant him sticking by me. They paid to have a sober companion with me 24/7 during the whole shooting."

She was aware that Schumacher could recast her, so the 63-year-old was grateful to have a second chance. Moore would maintain her sobriety for over two decades before relapsing in 2012. After re-entering treatment, she has been sober ever since.

"They could have easily just found someone else," Moore said. "Going to treatment, they were like, 'We want you to check in.' I'm like, 'No, no, I'm starting a movie.' And they said, 'Yes, but what's more important to you: the movie or your life?' And I said, 'The movie! C'mon, what are you talking about?' For me, I didn't have any value for myself. I think I was so fearful of failing."

Listen to the full episode of Reality Life with Kate Casey above.

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