In a recent interview with Variety, 20-year-old actress Chloe Grace Moretz revealed that she was once fat-shamed by a male co-star.
The actor (who Moretz didn’t reveal) was playing her love interest in a movie and allegedly offered a completely unsolicited comment on her body after a scene. “This guy that was my love interest was like, ‘I’d never date you in a real life,’ and I was like, ‘What?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, you’re too big for me’ — as in my size,” recalls Moretz. She was 15 at the time.
Obviously, Moretz did not appreciate being called “too big” by a coworker, and vented to her brother before having to pull herself together and go back to work. “I had to pick it up and go back on set and pretend he was a love interest, and it was really hard,” says Moretz. “It just makes you realize that there are some really bad people out there and for some reason, he felt the need to say that to me. You have to kind of forgive and not forget really, but it was just like wow. It was jarring. I look back on it and I was 15, which is really, really dark.”
Needless to say, sexism in Hollywood is rampant and affects everything from women’s ability to get roles, to how much they’re paid, to how they’re treated on a daily basis by coworkers. Moretz’s experience with sexism on set is both horrible and horribly unsurprising. It also wasn’t the last time.
“I’ve had a younger male lead ostracize me and bring up fake issues just to try and put me in my place, and make things up to the director…things that are crazy, things that I would never do, unprofessional things that would make no sense,” Moretz told Variety. “I’ve had an actor do that to me. It’s crazy. They have this inferiority issue, and I’m like, ‘You are completely equal to me, you are no different than me. I just happen to be the lead in this movie, and I don’t know why just because you are kind of the smaller character that you’re pushing me into a corner to try and put me down. Little snips that just put you down.”
Sexism in Hollywood is a big problem that needs pretty huge systemic solutions. But one way to make a dent in it is for brave women like Moretz to open up about their experiences. The more that happens, the more sexism stays in the conversation and can lead to solutions.
Way to go, Chloe!
