TORONTO – Chloe Grace Moretz has been working in the movie and TV business before she turned 7-years-old. She's played a Hit Girl, a vampire, a horror movie icon and, most recently, a young woman deciding whether to come out of a coma or not in “If I Stay.” It's safe to say, however, that Moretz's role in Antoine Fuqua's “The Equalizer” is her toughest yet. The again, most 16-year-olds aren't playing prostitutes in an R-rated action flick.
Speaking to HitFix before the world premiere of “Equalizer” in Toronto earlier this month, Moretz talked about her character, Teri, a young Russian immigrant who has found herself trapped in the clutches of a mob boss who pimps her to the rich and not-so rich men of Boston. Luckily, Teri has a guardian angel watching her in Robert (Denzel Washington), a friendly man she has casual conversations with at a local dinner every night. in many ways, her role bookends the movie, but Moretz insists she fought hard for what is essentially a supporting role.
Moretz recalls, “This role was at first written for a 23 to 24-year-old and they immediately told me, 'We're not going to audition you because there really isn't a point and I was like 'No, please, get me the audition. I will do it. I will kill it. I will try my best to do it.' And I went in there and I first had a meeting with Antoine and then I auditioned for him. And he really enjoyed what I was doing and I fought really hard for this role. Then I auditioned with Denzel and then I got a call a week later that I booked it.”
It's amazing how far Moretz has come since truly breaking out in “Kick-Ass” just four years ago, but she has a competitive spirit that should put some of her older peers on notice.
“When I was really younger i would auction for 30 movies and out of those 30 you book like three,” Moretz says. “Now that I've worked harder and harder and harder I've gotten really, really blessed to have the opportunities to really meet the director and make the movie with him. I'm only 17 so when these more adult characters come around I have to prove my worth and I have to prove I'm just as good as the 24-year-olds out there. And hopefully it works out.”
For more on Moretz's thoughts on her new movie and what she learned from the two-time Academy Award winner Washington, watch the rest of the interview embedded at the top of this post.
“The Equalizer” opens nationwide on Friday.