Chloe Grace Moretz has revealed she felt ‘infantilised’ by ‘older men’ in the film industry when she was a teen actress.

The Suspiria star, 25, has been acting on screen since the age of seven and had been working for nearly a decade when she got the lead role in Carrie at 14. Speaking on the Reign with Josh Smith podcast, Chloe told how she felt she got ‘pushback’ from older men anytime she had an idea and would be ‘shot down’.

‘At that point, I had already worked for so many years, almost 10 years and as I continued through having more important roles on set as I grew up, it was always very interesting to see the pushback that I would get from a lot of people. 

‘The majority of it was older men for sure who would infantilise me. If I had real things to bring to the table, a lot of the time it would get shot down.’ Chloe added that she felt there was often a ‘power struggle’ on set as she was the lead in the film but was still a teenager.

She said: ‘There were a lot of moments where it wouldn’t and I was treated equally. It was a really wild power struggle and power dynamic as a young girl who had worked for already 10, 11, 12 years, throughout my teenage years and was the lead of movies, but was still a kid in every sense of the word. 

‘They might have children the same age as me and there was a really interesting rub that would happen that, I felt like I was always really fighting against trying to figure out to conduct myself in a way that I’ll be respected, so I can be respected on set and given the credit that I felt that I deserved. 

‘To have a voice in the same game when I’m playing characters that are my age, I’m advocating for female characters of my exact age at the time.  ‘And having to even advocate to an older man on behalf of your 14, 15, 16 year old self is a really, really crazy kind of mind f**k.’

The actres said the experience taught her how to suggest ideas during the filmmaking process.

She said: ‘It taught me how to propose questions and in a way to make the ideas, their ideas, so then it would come back around and be like, “Oh my God, what a novel idea that you have on behalf of my character that I totally did not propose to you in no special way.”

‘But it was an interesting dynamic and as I grew up and as my characters grew up, I always had to be very sweet and very kind of back footed in the way that I proposed things, but strong.’ 

Elsewhere during the interview, the actress said she has learned how to enforce boundaries and has ‘weeeded’ people out of her life as a result.

She said: ‘I learned a lot of my boundaries in life and what I want in my friendships and what I want in my relationships… I think boundaries are super important. 

‘And part of realising your boundaries and actually enforcing your boundaries is speaking your truth without blame or judgement to people. 

‘And then seeing what you get back, listening to what you get back and learning from what you get back. So, boundaries are a new thing for me. I didn’t grow up with any boundaries. 

‘I didn’t learn any boundaries in my life and I got hit like a tonne of bricks multiple times and I was like, ‘you know what’? I think I need to learn this thing called boundaries. 

‘And it’s been great, but it’s really weeded a lot of people outta my life, for the better.’

‘The thing with cleansing people out of your life, you really do start to realise, like oh, how does this person make me feel? 

‘And what do I feel internally when I’m with you? And when I go away from you for a while and then we come back together, whether it be friendship, relationship, family, whatever it is in your life, how do I feel around you and do you make me feel good?

‘And it’s honestly as simple as that. And when you start to really figure out what makes you feel good and what makes you feel whole, you can kind of follow your own true north.’ 

Chloe told how people pleasing caused her ‘anxiety and guilt’ and she has learned to say ‘f**k it,’ and please herself after living in a ‘bubble for a long time’: 

She said: ‘I was in my own little bubble for a long time and then my bubble got burst… I always operated for a long time under this guise of what I wanted to achieve outwardly and what I wanted to do for outward exception. 

‘Even just in my small groups in my life and people around me, I was just people pleasing, people pleasing, people pleasing, people pleasing. 

‘I think a big turning point I’ve had in the last year, honestly, the last year and a half has been to say, ‘f**k it,’ a little bit and to people please myself [and find] unabashed self-acceptance. Which was something radical for me cause I never, I never did that. 

‘If anything ever happened that went wrong, it was always my fault in my own mind and how I perceived it. That anxiety and that guilt is really intense to live with. 

‘I started to, I think, ‘keep the noise at bay and really look inward and figure out who I am,’ and just have really meaningful conversations with those around me and have really honest conversations with those around me… you’re gonna learn to be there for yourself. 

‘All of a sudden I turned 25 and my like frontal cortex in my brain, formed and was like, ‘oh f**k it!’