Chloë Grace Moretz

• 1. Introduction

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  Chloë Grace Moretz, an American actress born on the 10th of February 1997, trained for three months with Jackie Chan's stunt crew before filming a violent superhero movie in 2010. She then did most of her own stunts while shooting on location. It is an unusual start for someone whose career had already been running for years.

  How did a girl raised in Cartersville, Georgia, end up on a stunt set at all? What made her decide, at 19, to walk away from several announced films? Why did one of her movies have its release canceled after a scandal, and what did she say about it? And what does she do now that she has stepped back from the blockbuster treadmill?

  The answers run through horror sets, a Martin Scorsese picture, a stage in New York, a fashion world that courted her, and a public life she has described in her own words. This is the story of what she chose, what she refused, and what she said about both.

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• 2. Georgia to New York

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  Moretz was born in Atlanta and raised in Cartersville, Georgia, in a large family. Her mother, Teri Duke, is a nurse practitioner. Her father, Dr. McCoy "Mac" Moretz, who lived from 1957 to 2021, was a plastic surgeon and an heir to the Moretz hosiery business. That company was bought out in 2011 for $350 million.

  She has four older brothers named Brandon, Trevor, Colin, and Ethan. An older sister, Kathleen, died shortly after birth. Moretz has described the household as "very Christian", and specifically Southern Baptist.

  In 2002, her mother took her and Trevor to New York City. Trevor had been accepted into the Professional Performing Arts School, and that school is what first sparked her own interest in acting. At home, her job was simple. She helped Trevor read his lines.

  Her first screen credit followed in 2004.

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• 3. Child Actor Years

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  On the CBS series The Guardian, Moretz played Violet in two episodes, and that marked the start of her acting career. Her first film role came as Molly in Heart of the Beholder. Neither brought her much notice.

  The 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror changed that. It was only her second big-screen part, yet it earned her greater recognition and a Young Artist Award nomination.

  After that she worked steadily. She took guest roles on television and a small part in Big Momma's House 2. She played the recurring character Kiki George in Dirty Sexy Money, which ran for seven episodes. She also played Sherri Maltby in two episodes of Desperate Housewives.

  Her voice found work too. From 2007 to 2010 she was the American voice of Darby, an animated character, in My Friends Tigger & Pooh. In 2008 she played Cammie, an abused child, in the drama The Poker House. That same year she appeared in the Disney animated film Bolt as a younger version of the character voiced by Miley Cyrus.

  In 2009 she played Rachel Hansen in 500 Days of Summer. A year later she was Angie Steadman in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, just before a very different role arrived.

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• 4. Hit-Girl

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  Director Matthew Vaughn cast Moretz as Hit-Girl, whose real name is Mindy McCready, in the 2010 action film Kick-Ass. The film was based on a comic book series by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. Because she was so young, her part in such a violent story set off controversy.

  Still, her performance earned critical acclaim. Roger Ebert gave the film only one star. Even so, he wrote of her: "Say what you will about her character, but Chloë Grace Moretz has presence and appeal."

  That same year she played Abby, a 12-year-old vampire, in Let Me In. The film is a UK and US remake of the Swedish picture Let the Right One In. Between the two films, 2010 became the year audiences stopped seeing her only as a child in supporting roles.

  A sequel was already on its way. In 2013 she would play Hit-Girl again in Kick-Ass 2.

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• 5. Directors and Dark Roles

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  In 2011, Martin Scorsese cast Moretz as Isabelle in Hugo, a 3D adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The film was nominated for eleven Oscars. That same year she played Ann Sliger in the crime thriller Texas Killing Fields and starred in Hick, based on a novel by Andrea Portes. She also took three episodes of the sitcom 30 Rock, playing Kaylie Hooper between 2011 and 2013.

  In 2012, Tim Burton gave her the part of Carolyn Stoddard in Dark Shadows, a remake of a soap opera. Carolyn is a rebellious teenage daughter. In 2013 she played the title character in Carrie, Kimberly Peirce's remake of the 1976 film. She also appeared that year in a short segment of the anthology Movie 43.

  In October 2012, she was asked why she keeps gravitating toward darker, troubled characters. Her answer was that her family life is happy, and that she finds it challenging to play characters who are significantly different.

  Her voice reached video games as well. She returned as Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass: The Game, and she voiced the young Emily in Dishonored. A second game, Kick-Ass 2: The Game, followed in 2014.

  From the 25th of March through the 27th of April 2014, Moretz made her Off-Broadway debut in The Library. Steven Soderbergh directed, and she played Caitlin Gabriel at The Public Theater in New York City.

  In 2014 she also starred as Mia in If I Stay, based on a novel by Gayle Forman. Mia is a 17-year-old classical musician who has an out-of-body experience after a catastrophic car accident involving her family. Reviews were mixed, with a 35% positive rating from 122 reviews and an average of 5 out of 10. The critics' consensus praised Moretz for giving the performance "her all".

  The 5th Wave followed, with Moretz as Cassie Sullivan in an adaptation of Rick Yancey's best-selling novel. It reached theaters in January 2016. Hannah Minghella of Sony Pictures said Moretz "embodies the heart, strength and determination that make Cassie such a compelling character."

  By then she was making several films a year, a pace she was about to question.

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• 6. Stepping Back

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  In November 2015, Moretz was attached to Shane Carruth's third film, The Modern Ocean. Its ensemble cast included Asa Butterfield, Anne Hathaway, Daniel Radcliffe, and Keanu Reeves. That same month she was announced as the star of Universal Studios' live-action The Little Mermaid, to be written by Richard Curtis. She later left that project.

  In a 2016 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she revealed that she had dropped out of all her unproduced films. Only The Little Mermaid was a publicly announced project among them. "I want to reassess who I am and find myself within my roles again. I'm realizing that I can slow down," she said. She explained that the workload had made her lose sight of why she started acting and focus instead on her films' box office receipts. She planned to turn toward producing, including two television projects.

  Some outlets read this as a hiatus, so she clarified in a later interview. "I'm just becoming more picky and particular about what roles I'm choosing," she said.

  In April 2016, she joined Mike Birbiglia and Sheila Nevins as one of three jurors for the Narrative Short Film Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival. That year she also co-starred with Zac Efron and Seth Rogen in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. She headlined Brain on Fire as Susannah Cahalan, whose memoir the film is based on.

  In 2017, she co-starred with Ansel Elgort in the crime drama November Criminals. She also starred in I Love You, Daddy, directed by Louis C.K. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and drew negative reviews. After sexual misconduct allegations against C.K., the media company The Orchard canceled the film's release, as did international distributors. Moretz said of men accused of sexual misconduct: "I think it should just kind of go away, honestly. I don't think it's time for them to have a voice right now."

  In 2018, she starred opposite Sasha Lane and Forrest Goodluck in The Miseducation of Cameron Post, about a teenage girl sent to a conversion camp. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize. It reached audiences on the 3rd of August 2018 through FilmRise, and critics praised her performance.

  Suspiria, Luca Guadagnino's remake of the 1977 film, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2018. Reviews were mixed and the box office was poor. Greta, a thriller with Isabelle Huppert, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival that same month. Focus Features released it on the 1st of March 2019.

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• 7. Animation and Producing

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  In 2019, Moretz voiced Wednesday Addams in the computer-animated film The Addams Family, which received mixed reviews. She returned to the role in The Addams Family 2 in 2021.

  The year 2021 also brought Tom & Jerry, directed by Tim Story, and the horror-thriller Shadow in the Cloud, directed by Roseanne Liang. She signed on for Mother/Android, the first film directed by Mattson Tomlin. In 2022 she led the Amazon Prime Video series The Peripheral, based on a novel by William Gibson, playing Flynne Fisher.

  In 2021, Moretz also executive-produced Coming Out, a six-part Snapchat Original series highlighting young LGBTQ people. She told The Advocate: "I hope it is a show that will help to save lives by sharing what coming out means to each individual , that no single 'coming out' story is the same, each one is unique."

  On the 30th of June 2023, Netflix released Nimona, in which she voiced the title character. In September 2025 she returned to the New York stage, starring as Maddie in an off-Broadway production of Caroline at the MCC Theater.

  Her film credits also list Oh. What. Fun. in 2025, and a film called Lou in post-production for 2026.

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• 8. Beyond the Screen

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  Max Mara granted Moretz its "Max Mara Face of the Future" award in 2012. That same year she became the face of the American youth clothing retailer Aéropostale. In 2013, she attended Dior's Spring/Summer 2013 show at Paris Fashion Week. In February 2013, Elle magazine gave her its "Next Future Icon Award" at the Elle Style Awards gala in London. Her photo shoots have appeared in magazines including Vogue, Teen Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, and InStyle.

  On the 2014 film The Equalizer, she took the role of a teenage prostitute because the character "felt so real", rather than being a "plot device". She identifies as a feminist and has turned down roles she found overtly sexualized. In October 2014, Time magazine named her one of the 25 Most Influential Teens of the year.

  Moretz has publicly supported LGBTQ equality. She is gay, and so are two of her brothers. She has said that their coming out was "jarring" to their Baptist community, and that the brothers first tried to "pray the gay away" on their own. In 2024, she publicly came out as a "gay woman".

  Her politics have been public too. In July 2016, she spoke at the Democratic National Convention, praising Hillary Clinton and encouraging young people to vote. She also voiced her support for Clinton on the South Korean show The Brainiacs/Problematic Men. In the 2024 United States presidential election, she supported Kamala Harris.

  In March 2016, at 19, she bought her first home, a $3.4 million Spanish estate in Studio City, Los Angeles. Her brother Brandon is her business manager. Trevor, the brother she once read lines with, has been her acting coach since 2010, often traveling with her. She is also an avid fan of the New York Islanders of the NHL.

  From 2014 to 2018, she was in a relationship with Brooklyn Beckham, the son of David and Victoria Beckham. In 2018, she began dating the model Kate Harrison, the daughter of actors Gregory Harrison and Randi Oakes. They confirmed their engagement on the 1st of January 2025. In an interview with Vogue, they confirmed that they had married over Labor Day weekend, and Vogue reported the wedding on the 1st of September.

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