You might not know the name Chloë Moretz right now, but all of that will change very soon.
The 13-year-old actress already has more than 30 film and television credits to her name, but her breakout role comes this week in the soon-to-be cult classic Kick-Ass.
In that tale of would-be superheroes, Moretz plays Hit Girl, a pint-sized assassin whose father (Nicolas Cage) quickly moved her from potty training to fight training, turning her into one of the deadliest women in the world at 11 years old. It’s the type of role that doesn’t come along often for such a young actress and one that is sure to bring Moretz plenty of fame and notoriety.
For Moretz, the road to Hit Girl started in the summer of 2008.
“I saw all the posters for Wanted and even though I wasn’t allowed to see the movie, I knew I wanted to do an action movie like Angelina Jolie. So, I told my mom that I wanted that kind of role,” Moretz told Metro.
Luckily for the young actress, a screenplay was floating around for Mark Millar’s then-unpublished comic book series Kick-Ass that needed a little girl to beat up henchmen and let off a few explosions.
Moretz and her family fought for the role and she was lucky enough to be cast in the film a mere few months after she had been admiring Angelina Jolie’s posters. From there, the serious preparations for the role began.
“I did about six months of fight training,” revealed the actress. “I went to the Toronto circus school. I worked at tumblers, I worked with martial artists and marines. It was pretty crazy, but I’m a ballerina and a gymnast, so I’m used to it.”
All the work clearly paid off as Moretz dominates some of the most giddily violent action scenes in recent memory.
Unfortunately, not everyone has been thrilled by Moretz’s performance as Hit Girl. Since the film premiered in Britain a few weeks ago, controversy has built up around the role, with a variety of journalists claiming that having such a young actress involved in violent scenes is incredibly irresponsible.
The issue doesn’t really seem to bother Moretz however, who dismisses the critics.
“It’s just a film. We all knew what we were doing and everything that I did in the film was in the script,” Moretz said.
