A matter of life or death for Chlo Moretz

Chlo Grace Moretz may only be a teenager but with 50 screen credits to her name, she takes her craft seriously.

The 17-year-old actress recently rumoured to be Brooklyn Beckham’s girlfiend burst on to the scene as Hit-Girl in 2010’s Kick-Ass.

That, along with her starring role in Let Me In, landed her on Time magazine’s Top 10 Movie Performances of the Year list.

With that success, she deems the increasing paparazzi interest in her “kind of silly”.

“It’s annoying when people care more about what you wear or who you’re with,” says Chlo, who comes from Atlanta, Georgia.

“It seems a little antiquated. I think the only thing they should care about is whether you’re a good actor.”

She describes her relatives as “really loud and crazy they’re wild”. Not unlike the family of Mia, her character in new movie, If I Stay.

Based on the bestselling young adult novel by Gayle Forman, her father is the drummer of a punk band, her mother reveres women like Blondie’s Debbie Harry, while Mia wants to play the cello at prestigious arts school Juilliard.

“I was able to understand Mia on a deep level, as I discovered acting when I was five and she found the cello when she was eight, so we both have this innate thing that happened to us where we found our passion early on,” says Chlo, who starred in 2005’s The Amityville Horror as well as 2012’s Dark Shadows, Hugo and last year’s Carrie remake.

One day, Mia’s involved in a car accident and, left in limbo, is forced to make a choice to stay in this world or move on to the next.

Chlo’s own views about death are optimistic. “If it means I’m reunited with my grandma, then I think that would be awesome. It’d make me so happy to see everyone. I welcome it, in a way. Not in a way that I want to make it happen early, but it’s not as scary as humans chalk it up to be.”

The film is told through flashbacks as Mia reflects on her life, relationships and a time when she believed the biggest decision she’d ever have to face was to pursue her musical dreams or be with the love of her life, Adam, played by Brit Jamie Blackley.

Experiencing love in real life helps when it comes to depicting it on screen, she admits. “But there are many forms of love and it’s not an easy thing to fabricate,” adds Chlo who, like Mia, is attracted to people with “ambition and a drive for something”.

Before cameras rolled, Chlo spent time studying classically trained cellists and noticed many were introverted until they began to play.

“It was fascinating to watch them transform before my eyes. They become so animated and passionate through this instrument.”

R.J. Cutler, the director, also arranged lessons for her via Skype, and in person, during the preceding months, ensuring Chlo always had access to a cello wherever she was in the world.

“I’d come to these new locations and there’d always be this instrument lurking around, following me,” she recalls, laughing. “From Leipzig in Germany to the middle of Louisiana, the hotel staff would give me a strange look and say, ‘Ma’am, there’s a cello for you downstairs’. But actually, living with it constantly made a difference. For cellists, it really is an extension of their body.”

According to her teacher, Chlo was a natural. “She did tell me I had good strength with my fingers, but I’m not sure whether she was buttering me up.”

It’s not the only skill Chlo has acquired recently. Before filming The Equalizer with Denzel Washington, in which she plays a young Russian sex trafficking victim, she learned Russian words, including “fat pig”, though she’s forgotten it all now, she points out, laughing.

No doubt she’ll gain another talent when she begins production on sci-fi action film The Fifth Wave in September. As with If I Stay, she’s the lead, a responsibility she doesn’t take lightly.

“I’ve been in tons of movies when I was younger and the lead was really mean or she didn’t really care. I think when you’re the lead, you’ve got to boost the morale a little bit and keep the crew and everyone together. When you don’t have someone doing that, everything falls apart.

“It’s not a hard thing to do, to not be mean and appreciate what you’re doing. It’s not a case of, ‘You’re welcome I showed up’. It’s, ‘No honey, you get paid to show up, do your job, sleep, wake up and do your job again!’ We all do that, and just because you’re the one in front of the camera, it doesn’t matter. It really aggravates me when people say it’s so hard to be nice.”

If I Stay is at cinemas now.