Demi Moore's adorable and, quite frankly, iconic pet, Pilaf, might be an A-lister among celebrity pets, but she's still a loyal dog at heart.

The actress tells Entertainment Weekly that her beloved 3-year-old long-haired chihuahua "was there every day" for the almost six-month shoot of her new body-horror movie, The Substance. Moore, 61, shot the film with director Coralie Fargeat and co-lead Margaret Qualley in Paris in 2022. Despite spending up to 10 hours per day getting buried under layers of monstrous prosthetics, including a facial creation that included 14 individual pieces, Moore says Pilaf had no trouble recognizing her.

"She always knew who I was," Moore recalls as Pilaf gently naps in Qualley's arms sitting beside her. "She was in the trailer, and I’d gone in [to shoot] and then came back, and it was as if I looked the same, which was always a great comfort to me."

Jeff Spicer/Getty

Moore leads the film as Elisabeth Sparkle, an Academy Award-winning actress deemed to be past her prime by a vicious TV executive (Dennis Quaid) who funds her late-career workout video empire before pulling the plug in pursuit of a new, younger star. This prompts Elisabeth to turn to a dangerous new drug that, once injected, produces a youthful version of herself, named Sue (Qualley), that bursts out of her spine — but, naturally, the film explores the price Elisabeth pays for indulging her own self-hatred.

Along the way, Elisabeth and Sue's bodies run the gamut, from pop star-level choreography to transformations that give the word grotesque a new meaning — but Pilaf was able to see through it all.

"It’s uncomfortable, it’s sensitive," Moore explains of the makeup she wears in the movie, adding that it allowed her to tap into the character's rapidly evolving sense of self (and her fragility) as the movie builds toward its violent conclusion.

"We’d hit the weekends and, both of us, did we go out anywhere? We didn’t do anything," Moore says of the grueling shoot. "During rest time, we’d text, I’d go to [Margaret's] apartment, it was two floors down, and we’d be like, ‘I can’t f---ing move.’ It was difficult."

Something that has moved in recent months, however, is Pilaf's celebrity profile. After posing for photographs alongside Moore at The Substance's world-premiere screening at Cannes in May, Vogue dubbed Moore and Pilaf "the beauty stars of Cannes," while Pilaf was hailed during the Feud TV series press tour as a breakout addition to Moore's team by PEOPLE and W as well. They also posed together at the EW, PEOPLE, and Shutterstock studio at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

Ben Trivett/Shutterstock

Moore has also given interviews discussing Pilaf's penchant for fellow famous people, as she told the Daily Mail in June that the dog recently took in a showing of the West End production of Tom Holland and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers' Romeo & Juliet in London.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

"She's like my little friend, my partner, my little travel mate," Moore said. "And she's just a joy. I usually have her in a little sling. We go everywhere together. She's been to the French Open and the Louvre. She's been to Broadway shows. She recently saw Tom Holland in Romeo & Juliet in London. She was quite moved. She thought the performance was extraordinary, as it was."

The Substance is in theaters now.