Chloë Grace Moretz reveals how she tricked director Martin Scorsese into casting her in Hugo. Beginning her career as a child actor, Moretz is perhaps best known for her breakthrough role as Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass and its sequel, Kick-Ass 2. She currently stars in the new Amazon Prime Video series The Peripheral which, from Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, could be the next big cerebral sci-fi series.
In 2011, Moretz starred in the Hugo, an action-adventure film directed by Scorsese. Based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret and adapted by the Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan, the film tells the story of the titular 12-year-old orphan played by Asa Butterfield who lives in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris during the 1930s and gets wrapped up in a mystery involving the real-life pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès, played by Ben Kingsley. In the film, Moretz plays the role of Georges' goddaughter Isabelle, who becomes Hugo's friend.
During a recent appearance on WIRED's Autocomplete Interview in which guests answer the internet's most searched questions about themselves, Moretz told the incredible story about how she was cast in Hugo. The Kick-Ass star says Scorsese strictly wanted a British actor for the role of Isabelle so Moretz, confident in her acting ability, went into the audition and pretended to be from England, even concocting a complete backstory. It wasn't until a month into filming Hugo that Scorsese realized Mortez, who was born and raised in the state of Georgia, was not actually British. Read how she recounted the story below:
Funny enough I did fool Martin Scorsese into thinking that I was. I had auditioned for a movie called Hugo Cabret and he was only gonna hire British girl, and I was like, "Yeah, I can do that." So I went into the audition and I fully pretended to be from England, and that my parents were horse breeders, and that we lived in the Cotswolds. I had a whole, told big lie, a huge lie, and then I booked the part. And it was like a month into production that he was like, "Wait, are you just doing an American accent?" And I was like, "No." I'm like American, like my accent is southern naturally if I don't iron it out. I guess maybe I am British. I don't know. It depends if I believe my own lie.
How Hugo Changed Chloë Grace Moretz's Career
During the early 2010s, Moretz was coming off her breakthrough role in Kick-Ass when she was cast in Hugo. While her performances as Hit-Girl in satirical superhero film was met with critical acclaim, Hugo signified a transition to more "serious" roles for Moretz. Scorsese's film, which pays homage to cinema itself, was nominated for a total of 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won five Oscars in various technical categories.
After Hugo, Moretz went on to garner further acclaim for her performance in the dramas Clouds of Sils Maria and If I Stay. In 2016, Moretz announced she would be "re-assessing" her choice of roles, leading to more socially-conscious dramas like The Miseducation of Cameron Post. Moretz is now one of the most promising young performers in Hollywood who could potentially be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is taking on arguably her most ambitious project yet in The Peripheral. However, all this might not have been possible if she didn't fool Scorsese into thinking she was British.
Source: WIRED