I’ve seen Chloë Grace Moretz on screen for the better part of both her life and mine, we being around the same age. After her breakout role in the 2010 film Kick-Ass, she made her stage debut at 17 with Scott Z. Burns’s The Library—a 2014 production at the Public Theater about a school shooting, directed by Steven Soderbergh. Now, more than 10 years later, she stars in the world premiere of Caroline, a new one-act by Preston Max Allen, directed by David Cromer, at the MCC Theater.
Caroline, a thorny depiction of filial love in all its iterations, centers on Maddie (Moretz), a heavily tattooed young single mother raising her trans daughter, Caroline (River Lipe-Smith). Maddie isn’t the perfect mom; she has struggled with addiction and often speaks before thinking, but she loves and accepts her daughter completely. But after encountering a compromising situation for them both, she decides to return to her childhood home and ask her estranged mother, Rhea (Amy Landecker), for help.
Just before heading to the theater on the final day of rehearsals, Moretz, clad in a well-matched Canadian tuxedo, sat down with Vogue in Brooklyn to discuss her momentous return to the stage and why it’s so important to be telling Caroline’s story in this moment.
Vogue: Congratulations on the imminent opening of Caroline. How did you get involved with the production?
Chloë Grace Moretz: I’ve been a part of this project for a couple of years now. When I came over to CAA, one of the first things that I said was that I really wanted to be back on stage, and I hadn’t done it in 10 years. And my amazing theater agent found this script and I read it, and just based off of the subject matter and the intensity and how poignant it is right now to have a project like that being made—I fell in love with it. And it was an opportunity to play Maddie, who’s a very multifaceted character. I can throw myself into something that I don’t think people have really seen me play before. And David Cromer is a prolific director.
What were your initial impressions after reading the script?
I think it was the perfect mixture of all of the things that I’ve been looking for in a play. It was very intense—it was a bullet train. It starts and doesn’t stop and you kind of just get on the ride and you’re on it until they walk out. And it always felt like a one-act, which is what it ended up being, and I really love a one-act. Actually, the last play I did 10 years ago was also a one-act.
Tell me about that last play before your theater hiatus.
My hiatus was from ages 17 to 28—so almost 11 years. It was called The Library and it was directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Scott Burns, who is a wonderful writer. It dealt with a school shooting. It opened on a surgery with a patient and you overhear what happened. So it had a lot of very intense subject matter but was very poignant, especially at that time and even more so now, with the issues of gun violence and gun safety in America. And I think this play (Caroline) deals with a lot of themes that are incredibly important right now. There are obviously the dynamics of three generations of women, but then slowly you start to peel back the layers of what Caroline is going through, and the element of her mother’s addiction and sobriety. I definitely love a project that tears your heart out and stomps on it a little bit, but then lifts you back up.
This is the world premiere of this play, so this version, at least for now, is the blueprint of this show. What did that mean for how you all built and came into your characters?
Preston has been in lockstep with David and with all of us in every rehearsal. I mean, it has changed so much—you know, things play differently when you are physically there. There has been a lot of parsing dialogue and allowing subtext to live through it. But the last play I did was also an original, so I don’t know the perspective of doing a more storied piece. And so I feel really lucky that I’ve been able to leave a fingerprint on these characters. Preston has such a strong point of view and is such a beautiful and specific writer. He is very specific with his punctuation, so it is about figuring out what the pace of things is. I think the biggest thing with a new play is figuring out the tempo. Then there’s also the physicality. The physicality was something that I really wanted to throw myself into, and I worked with an amazing movement coach.
What was that like?
It’s amazing. She’s really helped me figure out the aggression and dominance of Maddie’s stature at times. She and I will start by reading through the script, and then we’ll sit and talk for a couple of hours and just run through it. We’ll talk through different inspirations for the character and find certain real people.
It does seem like you’re pulling from real people from the emo-punk scene for Maddie’s fashion and movement.
I mean, I had my own era dipping my toe in, and I was around a lot of people that were really in that scene. There’s a specific physicality and tempo to them, like the way they move their hands, and I homed in on those intricacies. And I will do deep dives on TikTok, or we’ll look at concert videos, because Preston was really specific about the music that was written into the play. Coheed and Cambria was one of the main ones—like, this tattoo I have [Moretz gestures to one of her temporary tattoos] is a Coheed and Cambria symbol. On Reddit, we found people who had been through sobriety and recovery and had found lyrics in Coheed and Cambria’s music that really connected to them. So we pored over the lyrics and then wrote those onto the shoes that Maddie wears.
Maddie is covered in these tattoos, but do you have any of your own?
I have a bunch. I think I have 23, but they’re all, like, here [Moretz gestures to her torso], and some on my ankle and the back of my neck. And one on my wrist. But they’re mainly in places so I don’t have to cover them every day on set.
Given the play’s subject matter, does it feel like you are part of a political production?
I think the best form of art takes a strong stance, and this is a play that takes a strong stance. And I think that with what’s going on, not just in our country, but in multiple countries across the world right now, there’s a silencing of trans creators, gay creators, and queer creators in general. I think you should be taking a stance with the art you make. It’s been really wonderful to see responses from people that might not have ever been a part of trans people’s lives, and they get to step in for an hour and 26 minutes and hear dialogue and witness all of us existing. And it just is—the normalcy of that. That’s what I love so much about what Preston wrote in this play, is that there is a lot of really intense fighting that goes on, and none of it is about whether or not Caroline is who Caroline is. There’s no misgendering. Caroline is Caroline, and no one questions that. The normalcy of Caroline being Caroline is what I think is so poignant and is what you don’t expect going in—which I think is a stance.
Much more of the tension exists between Maddie and her mother. What is it like to perform such intense emotion day in and day out?
Yeah, I’m screaming and sobbing every single day, and it’s a lot. I mean, it’s really brutal, but it’s so worth it because of the response we’re getting from audience members and how honest and poignant it feels. I am really lucky that I live here in New York, and my wife is here, our dog is here, and I get to go home and get a home-cooked meal and take a bath. I’m excited to open because then I won’t be in rehearsals, and I’ll be able to have my whole day and I can start working out again.
What’s your routine now?
I usually work out four times a week and am able to have a bit of a life, but I haven’t had much time because we’re in rehearsals every day from noon, and I don’t get home until 10:30. So I end up sleeping until nine, warming up my vocals, and then getting in my car and driving to the city.
Do you drive there every day?
I do. I love it. I love driving in the city. I lived in LA for a long time, and it’s not that different in terms of driving in New York—I just get to use my horn more here. And I have a big car. I’d be a little more scared if I was in a smaller car.
Is there any piece of queer media you’ve been excited about lately?
There’s just not that much out there that’s, like, actually created by us, which is sad. Something highbrow? I don’t know, but Queer Ultimatum—we watched it so fast. It’s pretty diabolical.
Source: Vogue USA
