Chloë Grace Moretz Comes Out Fighting

A year and a half ago, Chloë Grace Moretz — a preternaturally confident child star who by 19 had more than 50 credits on her résumé, including “Kick-Ass,” “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and “Clouds of Sils Maria” — hit pause. “I had taken a little break to figure out exactly what project I wanted to do next that felt like it really connected to me and said something about who I am,” she said. “And the first thing that ticked all those boxes was ‘The Miseducation of Cameron Post.'” Now in theaters, the film, directed by Desiree Akhavan, won a grand jury prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

As Cameron, Moretz plays an 11th-grader in 1993 who, after getting caught making out with a girl, is sent to God’s Promise, a Christian gay conversion camp. Under the supervision of Dr. Lydia Marsh (Jennifer Ehle) and the brother whose homosexuality she supposedly cured, Reverend Rick (John Gallagher Jr.), the camp uses prayer and therapy to exorcise teenagers of what it views as aberrant sexual urges.

“Having two gay brothers and growing up a natural advocate for the LGBT community, it already played a very close, personal place in my heart,” said Moretz, noting that close to 700,000 Americans are estimated to have undergone conversion therapy, and that 14 states and the District of Columbia now ban the practice for minors. “When you see people weaponize Christianity in this horrifically abusive psycho-manipulation, I think it’s so, so sad and hypocritical because you can’t call yourself a Christian but also try to condition people to hate themselves.”

Last year, Moretz — who has spoken out against body-shaming and took to the podium at the 2016 Democratic National Convention on behalf of Hillary Clinton — found her film “I Love You, Daddy,” about a seductive teenager in thrall to a 68-year-old filmmaker, shelved when its creator, Louis C.K., admitted to sexual misconduct. In a recent phone interview, Moretz, 21, discussed the importance of “Miseducation” and whether the Louis C.K. movie should ever be released.

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

A: Their biggest thing was that they’ve never felt that a movie has adequately depicted gay people in general but especially young gay people. And they said that this movie was the closest depiction of how it went for them. This is a queer movie made by queer people for queer people.

A: I couldn’t overthink her. She is incredibly strong, but she enters a place, at first questioning it, and then pivots to wanting to see if it works, giving in altogether. Then she’s faced with the realization that this is all just a shot in the dark. And from that point on, she finds her own strength and she finds her own family.

A: There’s the identity of femininity and what kind of woman you are. Not even sexual identity, but just the societal pressures of being a young woman was obviously something that I dealt with, especially magnified because I was placed under a microscope from a young age. So I definitely struggled with “Who am I? And what am I?” My brothers, being marginalized their entire lives, were the first to try and help me find my voice and my identity.

A: I knew about it, but I was unaware that it was so prevalent in modern society.

A: What was really interesting was the diversity, because in my mind I saw a kind of Bible Belt America, before I did the research. But then I saw the different socioeconomic backgrounds, different races, different religions — and people that were also not religious at all.

A: Actual professionals have not only come out against it, but they’ve actually said the truth of it, which is it raises the rates of suicide, it raises the rates of contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases, it raises the rates of alcoholism and drug abuse.

A:No. 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. Of course, it’s devastating to put time into a project and have it disappear. But at the same time, this movement is so powerful and so progressive that I’m just happy to be in communication with everyone and to see the big change in the face of the industry, which I think is very, very real.