Chloe Grace Moretz wasn't around for the first "Carrie." To gear up for the title role for the remake that hit theaters this week, the 16-year-old went straight to the source instead of studying Sissy Spacek's performance in the 1976 original.
"What I found challenging was being able to adapt a Stephen King novel, one of his most iconic," Moretz said during an interview this week. "I went straight to the book."
Moretz was drawn to the tale of a girl with secret superpowers unleashed following trouble at home and at school.
“The abuse and the ostracization she gets from her peers and from her parent” make Carrie a tragically compelling figure, she said. “This is a multilayered character.”
In the original, Carrie is tormented by mean girls who taunt and throw things at her, and by her mother, who has taken religion to psychotic extremes. In an age where bullying can become even more insidious thanks to social media, Moretz said “Carrie” is newly relevant.
“Girls are just conniving and rude,” she said. “They always want to pull you down. I’ve seen a lot of the effects of that.”
On the more positive side of social media, part of the movie’s marketing campaign was that brilliant telekinetic coffee-shop spoof. Google “Carrie coffee shop” if you haven’t already seen the clip of one actress wielding what appears to be supernatural powers to the horror of other customers. You have to love the bystander who’s alternately screaming and trying to capture the action on her cellphone camera.
“I think it would be interesting to have Carrie’s powers,” Moretz said. “I don’t think I’d want to be in that position.”
Also known for roles in last year's campy film adaptation of "Dark Shadows" with Johnny Depp and several episodes of "30 Rock," Moretz appears in "The Equalizer" with Denzel Washington next year and is working now on "Dark Places" with Nicholas Hoult and Charlize Theron.
Our phone interview was interrupted several times by the train passing by the "Dumb and Dumber To" set earlier this week, where we were camped out to watch Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in action. So we asked if Moretz, who grew up in Cartersville, plans to come home to metro Atlanta for a film of her own.
“I wish!” she said. “Everything is shooting in Atlanta right now but me.”
