Chloë Grace Moretz doesn’t want to be known as just a child star.
The 25-year-old made a name for herself in Hollywood with roles in projects such as “500 Days of Summer,” “Carrie” and more.
Now, she’s opening up about choosing her next movies more carefully — especially after being a “recluse” and suffering from body dysmorphia.
In a new interview with NME, Moretz explained how she’s in her “f – – k it era” and is ready to be more selective with her acting jobs.
“When you’re a child actor, it’s really about making hay while the sun shines, working as much as you can,” the “Kick-Ass” star said.
“As I grew up, I realized that I wanted to peel back. I’d rather make zero movies in one year if it means I didn’t connect to anything. That’s literally what I did this year — 2016 was kind of a trial run to figuring that out,” Moretz went on.
“The Peripheral” actress added: “What’s fun about this job is that it should change with how you grow.”
Moretz noted how she read “a ton of scripts and had a ton of meetings this year,” however, she couldn’t find a project that she connected with.
“And this is the first time, outside of the pandemic years, when I actually just effectively chose not to work. That was really scary and brought up a lot of insecurities in my body,” she said.
In 2016, a viral meme comparing Moretz to a “Family Guy” character surfaced and led her to develop body-image issues. The experience forced Moretz to reevaluate her career and she even turned down film projects for a period of time.
The MTV Movie & TV Awards winner continued: “It’s important for me to sit back and trust how I’ve been planting the seeds, and now I’m finally able to reap what I’ve sown. And I need to just trust myself. I’ve been calling it my ‘f – – k it’ era!”
Moretz also dished more about her career in a talk with The A.V. Club on Thursday. She discussed how her “Hugo” director Martin Scorsese was a mentor to her on set.
“He is such a cinephile, and he really imparted that knowledge to me, just in the time that I got to spend with him,” Moretz explained. “One of the first things he did when I showed up to start preproduction is he had a big box dropped off, and it had probably 25, 30 movies in it.”
The “Gangs of New York” director bestowed the films upon her, so she could watch them all before she started shooting the 2011 drama.
She said: “The movies that he gave me were different than movies he gave [‘Hugo’ co-star Asa Butterfield]. So we had to do our homework, and then he would basically pop quiz us on it. He’d be like, ‘So, what do you think about this? What do you think about that?’ He really got our muscles flexing.”
