Chlöe won’t back down

Whether it’s playing an onscreen boundary-breaking heroine or shattering gender stereotypes offscreen, actress Chloë Grace Moretz isn’t afraid to disrupt the status quo.

chloë Grace Moretz may be 20, but don’t call her an ingenue. Force of nature is more like it. She won her first big role, in The Amityville Horror, at five by demonstrating an uncanny ability to cry on command. Then she impressed in a stream of kid roles.

By age 11, she didn’t feel like a child anymore: she had seen her mom, Teri, fight kidney cancer and supported her brothers Trevor and Colin when they revealed they were gay. Adding to that, her parents’ marriage was crumbling. No one would have blamed her for locking her bedroom door and hiding from the world, but Chloë had a better way forward.

Announcing she wanted to sink her teeth into “a take-charge leading role,” she snapped up the part of Hit-girl, the pint-size assassin in Kick-ass. Thus began her metamorphosis from child star to leading woman. Now she aims to make progressive female roles her speciality – including upcoming parts in November Criminals (alongside Ansel Elgort) and Suspiria.

Like many of the characters she plays, Chloë is all about trusting her gut, following her heart, speaking out – and she’s using the platform fame has given her to fight for what she believes. “The way I look at it is, I’m trying to start conversations,” she says. “You might not agree with my opinions, and that’s great – I would love to talk about it.” We sat down with her to do exactly that.

GLAMOUR You’ve played a lot of rebellious women. Is that what you look for when you’re reading a script?

CHLOË Definitely. With movies like Kick-ass, Carrie and Let Me In, I was able to push boundaries at a really young age. Now that I’m able to get projects funded, curate scripts and make movies, it means a lot to me to go against gender norms. My biggest thing now is making gender-equalising movies, where you can put a male or a female actor in that role, and it would work the same way.

Your 2016 Twitter exchange with Kim Kardashian West made headlines. Your response to her Instagramming a nude photo was: “I truly hope you realise how important setting goals are for young women. Teaching them we have so much more to offer than just our bodies.” Why did you want to send that message?

I had just gotten off a plane from South Korea and I was incredibly jet-lagged. I couldn’t take one more thing. I saw that photo and I had to say something. That picture wasn’t linked to body confidence. It was not a #Bodyconfidence or a #Lovewhoyouare. It was done in a slightly voyeuristic light, which I felt was a little inappropriate for young women to see.

I would hate for young women to feel they need to post certain photos to gain likes, retweets, favourites and male attention. I wasn’t slut-shaming. It’s not about body shaming.

Kim replied by tweeting: “Let’s all welcome @Chloegmoretz to twitter, since no one knows who she is.”

I started laughing. I was at dinner with my family when I got the notification. I looked at it and I was like, “Oh my word. She responded.” My mom took the most offense to it because it was girl-on-girl hate and Kim didn’t come back with an educated response on body confidence. It was aggressive, and also it was incorrect. I don’t have 55.2 million Twitter followers or a TV show that follows my life. But people know who I am. I pride myself on having opinions, and I don’t express them in snarky ways.

You’ve said, “When I post a bikini shot, I get thousands of new followers.” So when you post that shot, is it to gain more followers?

I do that because it’s a body-confidence thing. I posted one when I was in Mexico. I felt good, and I was wearing a bikini on a beach.

It wasn’t me sexualising myself. It had a beautiful background, and when I posted that shot, I knew that there would be a lot of young women looking at it. So I made sure that it was tasteful.

Lets talk about your views on feminism. A few years ago, you said, “I’m definitely a feminist, but I don’t hate all men.” Did you have a full understanding of what the word meant to you then?

The word feminism meant something very different to me when I was 13. I had four older brothers and a single mom, and we were providing for one another. It was a collective effort between men and women. So for me, it was about familial equality.

Has your understanding evolved?

I was uneducated on the word feminism because I wasn’t a grown-up in a lot of ways. I hadn’t dealt with the amount of adversity that I deal with now, especially in business. I’ve travelled more. I’ve been part of different cultures and [heard about] what it means to be a minority woman in this country and other countries.

I’ve read more and I’ve experienced more. It’s kind of an evolution. Now, for me, feminism means equality for people of all genders, races and economic situations. But at the same time, I never really thought that feminism was about hating men; I was afraid that people would view me in that way.

“I’ve read more and I’ve experienced more. It’s kind of an evolution. Now, for me, feminism means equality for people of all genders, race and economic situations.”

“Now that I’m able to get projects funded, curate scripts and make movies, it means a lot to me to go against gender norms.”

You’ve talked a bit about your dad, Mccoy, leaving your family.

I was 12. It was a pretty bad experience. It could have rocked our family and messed us up, but it actually made us a lot tighter. My brothers bumped up into the roles of fathers and kept me in a bubble where I could live in a world that wasn’t jaded and ruined.

You’ve said two of your brothers were bullied in school for being gay. Do you still find you have to stand up for their rights?

Yeah, last year over Christmas. My family was at a bar post-skiing, doing a pizza and chicken-wing thing. These guys go, “Ugh, who let the f-a-g-g-o-t-s in here?” I was like, “What did you say?” My two straight brothers bucked up, too. I was like, “Do you want to say it again?” They were like, “No, it’s all good.” I’m the type of person who will start swinging if you offend my family.

What a support system you have! You’ve also found support on set. Who’s been your favourite female director to work with?

Rebecca Thomas. She knows what she wants. She’s intuitive and artistic, and her ideas are really out of the box.

You’ve expressed interest in writing, directing and producing. Why do you want that role?

I like to push myself as an actor and an artist, and writing, producing and directing – all these are things that I haven’t accomplished yet. They’re big life hurdles that I’ve set out in front of me, and they’re just waiting for me to take them on headfirst. So why not?

“Now, for me, feminism means equality for people of all genders, races and economic situations.”