Chloë Grace Moretz on Why the Movie & Her Character Are Special

Nimona, the long-anticipated animated film based on the graphic novel by ND Stevenson is finally arriving on Netflix. The story follows the titular Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz), a young woman who can shapeshift at will, who one day decides to work as the evil sidekick to disgraced ex-knight Ballister Blackheart (Riz Ahmed). But as the two work to clear his name of the murder charge he is facing, Nimona, too, is forced to face the past that led her here and what it means to be a “monster” in a world that sees in black and white terms.

In this one-on-one interview Moretz talked about playing with all the intricacies the part had to offer. She also talks about finding the heart and the vulnerability in an animated performance, what her favorite scene was, and which ad-lib makes her laugh.

What is it about Nimona that drew you to the project, both the story and the character?

CHLOË GRACE MORETZ: So many things. I think that this is such a multifaceted character. There are not a lot of opportunities as an actor to display this many emotions in every single scene, and I think every time I showed up into the booth, it was almost like solving a Rubik’s cube puzzle of emotions of how to hit those levels when I needed to hit them, and it was exciting. This is a story that I think represents a lot of things that I believe in, and being able to do that in a way that is so attainable and exciting and silly and funny is a rare occurrence.

Obviously, this is based on a graphic novel, but did you get the chance to work with the creative team and expand Nimona beyond what existed on the page?

MORETZ: Definitely. You know, this was created by ND Stevenson, I think, as his college thesis, and then that grew into a webcomic, and then from there, that grew into a graphic novel. So, this is a character that I think has shifted and changed—shifted like the character [laughs]—she’s shifted and changed in so many ways, and it’s such a fluid character that you don’t get to see often. So being able to kind of jump into that and to play all those different kinds of intricacies while all at once honoring the original source material was hard and fun, and yeah, exciting

Nimona is a very intricate character, as you said. Your co-stars have talked about getting the chance to kind of ad-lib a little bit, and I wonder if there was space for you to do the same, as intricate as she is. Was there room to play with that a little bit?

MORETZ: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that’s what added to it, you know? The improv was an opportunity to kind of expound on those little nuances. To hit those levels, you can’t always do what’s on the page. And Nick [Bruno] and Troy [Quane] just kind of prodded and pushed us to go further and further and further, and to find those things. And a whole lot of that is not far off from me as a person. I have a lot of silliness to me and a lot of kind of gremlin energy that comes through sometimes, and being able to expound on that in the booth, in just a safe, really supportive space, was so fun, to be honest.

What ad-lib beat that you remember being a favorite of yours?

MORETZ: Oh, my gosh. I don’t know. I mean, there were so many moments. I think it was all the moments of playing in the fight sequence. All those silly moments where she’s like, “He peed his pants, he peed his armor, he peed his armor!” If you listen to every time I shapeshift, there are little silly things we did throughout that whole sequence, which was chaotic and very funny.

Can you explain the challenge of bringing that heart out? Because, like you said, it does have a ton of heart, but when you are performing voice only, were there specific ways that you kind of worked to bring that out? What is that process in conveying the heart?

MORETZ: I think I could really relate to hiding your emotions with a lot of bravado or not showing exactly how you’re feeling in circumstances that you’re protecting yourself within. That was something that, when I’m doing that dialogue— Because with voiceover, you’re not memorizing lines, so you’re reading it when they send it to you, which the scripts change as you record them, so you kind of get the pages like three or four days before you record. You had those three or four days to pore over the sides and to figure out how you’re gonna do it, and then you don’t really say them out loud a lot until you’re in the booth doing the moment.

Sometimes it strikes you in ways where there were moments where we were doing scenes that I would tear up in because they’re so full, you know what I mean? And again, that’s not something that you usually have in animation where you have that amount of vulnerability, and I think it just speaks so much for the writers and for the source material, too, that I didn’t have to overthink a lot of it. I just had to be, and then, you know, find those little beads. It was really fun.

What do you hope that audiences take away from the movie?

MORETZ: I hope that audiences feel represented. I hope that they feel that this is a story for anyone that’s ever felt different, anyone that’s ever been villainized for being themselves, which we all have in some facet, at some point. And being able to see that on-screen with a character that’s so full of self-love, that’s so full of self-acceptance, that’s so confident and just badass in the way that she represents herself, you don’t usually get that kind of character that you just want to stand behind and stand beside, and I think that we can all use a little bit of Nimona in our lives.

Nimona is on Netflix NOW