Chloë Grace Moretz on What She Hopes Fans Took Away From Her Addressing 'Family Guy' Meme (Exclusive)
Chloë Grace Moretz is opening up about what she hopes fans take away from her recently addressing the horrific Family Guy meme that was a total "headf**k," and she can sum it up with just two words -- more compassion.
While walking the red carpet for Prime Video's The Peripheral premiere at the famed Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday night, the 25-year-old actress told ET she hopes there's more compassion in this world after revealing the impact the Family Guy meme had on her life for the better part of a year.
Last month, Moretz, for the first time, told Hunger Magazine that she "basically became a recluse" after she was bombarded with the Family Guy meme born out of a photo of her walking into a hotel with a pizza box in her hand. That photo, she said, "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."
"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 I can't change about who I am, and it is being posted all over Instagram," she recalled to the outlet. "It was something so benign as walking into a hotel with leftovers. And to this day, when I see that meme, it's something very hard for me to overcome."
Just weeks after opening up about the ordeal that made her "severely anxious" and "hyperventilate" whenever she was in the presence of photographers, Moretz says she hopes there was a lesson to be learned after being vulnerable, and expressing how the meme makes her feel.
"I think the big thing is that compassion is a really key thing in humanity and just being kind with the words that you say with one another, the things you say online," Moretz tells ET. "I think compassion is key and I hope that the world can have a little bit more of that.”
One thing the world will have a lot more of very soon will be Moretz. The actress stars on The Peripheral, the new sci-fi TV series from the creators of the HBO hit series Westworld. Moretz plays Flynne Fisher, a deft gamer who lives in rural America and earns extra cash playing VR games for rich people. She uses that money to help her ailing mother, but her world turns upside down when she dons a beta headset and finds herself in futuristic London, which is described by the show's official synopsis as "a sleek and mysterious world, alluringly different from her own hardscrabble existence."
The series is already drawing comparisons to Westworld, and while Moretz calls that an honor, she also notes their distinctions.
"I think being compared to Westworld is a huge honor. What I would say the difference is there's so much even more heart, I would say, in our show and it really centers around the brother and sister's familial bond, and I think it's a story that no matter how deep you go into the sci-fi, you're always going to boomerang back home," she says.
The new series also stars Jack Reynor as Mortez's brother, Burton Fisher, and their gaming got so intense, she joked that producers couldn't get them out of their trailer half the time. She and Reynor live in L.A., so they also catch up while donning headsets and playing Call of Duty.
In fact, there was no need for Moretz to immerse herself in the gaming world to prepare for that world. She'd already been part of that world, having grown up playing video games and beating her four brothers along the way. Suffice it to say, to call her a gamer is "a bit of an understatement," she quips.
The Peripheral debuts Oct. 21 on Prime Video.
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