Chloë Grace Moretz had her first acting role at 8. She says she's been "infantilised" her entire career.

We met Chloë Grace Moretz for the first time almost 20 years ago. 

Her cutesy role in the popular series The Guardian helped to prepare her for a level of stardom that not even Moretz herself could have anticipated. But it wouldn't be until the release of 2010 film Kick-Ass that Moretz was catapulted into the spotlight.

At the time, she was 12 years old. 

Despite being just a pre-teen, Moretz didn't actually know just how famous she was until she turned 18. She said that it was only then that the reality hit her like "a ton of bricks".

"I was 18 and doing a red carpet. I walked off of it and I felt so much self-loathing and was really confused about the experience that just went down," she told Hunger Magazine in September. "I was really unwell after that. There was this complete jarring shift in my consciousness, I questioned who I was."

The self-doubt also crept in. Moretz admitted she would constantly ponder who she was as an actor.

Chloe Moretz in The Amityville Horror. Image: MGM.

"I had to work through that. For a long time, I was able to be the Chloë that people see and the Chloë that I am in private," she explained. "Then those two worlds collided, and I felt really raw and vulnerable and open."

In a new interview on the Reign With Josh Smith podcast, the 25-year-old actor shared her ideas were often "shut down" growing up.

"At that point, I had already worked for so many years, almost 10 years at that point, and as I continued through having more important roles on set as I grew up, it was always very interesting to see the pushback that I would get from a lot of people," she explained. 

Moretz added it was also peculiar "to see who would be really unhappy with a young woman" having opinions on movie sets.

"The majority of it was older men, for sure, who would infantilise me. If I had real things to bring to the table, a lot of the time it would get shot down," she said.

Her experience behind the scenes and in the spotlight were often complicated and hard to manage, she admitted. 

Chloë Moretz, 2022. Image: Getty.

And while "there were a lot of moments" she felt she was treated fairly, Moretz said she often encountered a "really wild power struggle and power dynamic of a young girl who had worked for already [over a decade] and was the lead of the movies but was still a kid in every sense of the word."

During this challenging time of her career is when Moretz's mental health took a nosedive. 

In 2016, a paparazzi photo was captured of the actor carrying a leftover pizza. In the photo, she was wearing a black shirt, shorts and high heels. 

Internet trolls photoshopped the image, so it looked like Moretz had a shorter torso. The meme affected her severely.

"I've actually never really talked about this, but there was one meme that really affected me, of me walking into a hotel with a pizza box in my hand," she explained. "And this photo got manipulated into a character from Family Guy with the long legs and the short torso, and it was one of the most widespread memes at the time."

Despite the obvious pain it caused for Moretz, those around her didn't realise the gravity of the situation.

"Everyone was making fun of my body, and I brought it up with someone, and they were like, 'Oh, shut the f**k up, it's funny.' And I just remember sitting there and thinking, my body is being used as a joke, and it's something that I can't change about who I am, and it is being posted all over Instagram," she told Hunter Magazine.

"It was something so benign as walking into a hotel with leftovers," she added. "And to this day, when I see that meme, it's something very hard for me to overcome."

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Nowadays, Moretz has a thicker skin – but it doesn't mean the memes and jokes are easy for her to ignore. 

"After that, I was kind of sad. It took a layer of something that I used to enjoy, which was getting dressed up and going to a carpet and taking a photo, and made me super self-conscious," she said.

Moretz added, "I think that body dysmorphia – which we all deal with in this world – is extrapolated by the issues of social media. It’s a headf**k."

The experience of being trolled and made a mockery off made her retreat from the public eye, in an effort to avoid the paparazzi. 

"I basically became a recluse," she said. "But at the same time, it made me severely anxious when I was photographed. My heart rate would rise and I would hyperventilate."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Moretz was able to take a break from work. And to avoid another meme-photo being taken without her consent, she only went out in public wearing a disguise during that time. 

"For the first time, I didn’t have to think about what I was doing next month or what I was going to do in a week," the actor shared. "I know that’s obviously a very privileged thing to say, and I’m very aware of that. But for me, it was a time of introspection."

Moretz added: "To say that these past two years have been transformative is an understatement, to say the least. I'm a very different girl than I was. I feel like a woman now."

This article was published on September 29 and has since been updated with new information.

Feature Image: Getty/Lionsgate/MGM.