‘Chloë Grace Moretz’ Hit Girl is back in Kick-Ass 2

Kick-Ass wouldn’t be half the hero he is without Hit Girl, and no sequel would begin production without her in the mix.  Imagined by Award winning writer Mark Millar as a tribute to his eldest daughter, Hit Girl has struck a chord with readers since her introduction and grown exponentially in popularity.  The young woman who brought her to life, Chloë Grace Moretz, has been working up a storm—earning critical acclaim in such fare as Let Me In, as well as working with the likes of Martin Scorsese in Hugo and Tim Burton in Dark Shadows and soon to be seen starring opposite Julianne Moore as the title character in the remake of Carrie.  Like her co-stars, she was thrilled to step back into her Kick-Ass role as Hit Girl, unfazed by the commotion caused by her appearance the first time around.

"The obvious difference is that I'm older now, and the difference between 11 and 15, which is how old I was when we finished, is that you're a different person, obviously," Executive Producer Neal H. Moretz reveals. "You're calculating more ideas, you're experiencing more things in your own life, you're not just living through other people's eyes, you're making your own decisions."


For the 2010 film, the now 16-year-old actress took the world by roundhouse kick with not only her acting abilities, but her phenomenal mastery of weaponry and martial arts.  Indeed, Moretz didn’t know she was prescient when she joked at the premiere of the first film that she wanted to ride a purple Ducati: Hit Girl’s bike of choice in Kick-Ass 2.  Laughs Moretz: “To get in the costume again and do all the stunts was pretty amazing.  I’ve had such a great time reliving the character and bringing in more dimensions, while taking an older approach to the role.  I liked seeing what I could play within the part.”

Everybody wants to be a SUPERHERO!

This Summer, a new breed of superheroes will be revealed!

Teen geek and comic book fanatic Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) makes a totally bizarre but brave decision--- he is going under disguise as a superhero, minus the superpowers. And he’s going to be known as Kick-Ass. Donned in a green and yellow wetsuit bought online, he prowls the city to fight crime. However, he’s not the only superhero out there. The fearless and highly-trained father-daughter crime-fighting duo Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) have been slowly but surely taking down the criminal empire of local Mafioso Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong). Another fledgling superhero joins them by the name of Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who happens to be Frank’s son.

KICK-ASS is based on the comic book of the same name written by Mark Millar and illustrated by John Romita, Jr. When Mark pitched his story to Matthew Vaughn, director of the blockbuster film Stardust, the latter was impressed and immediately agreed to direct the movie and write the screenplay with Jane Goldman, also his co-writer of Stardust. Vaughn and Goldman were keen that their movie wouldn’t simply be a carbon copy of Millar’s book hence the back-story of Nicolas Cage’s character Big Daddy.

Cage was offered the choice of playing Frank D’Amico or Damon Macready, a.k.a. Big Daddy, and responded strongly to the latter. He says, “I thought that was where the heart was, in the relationship between Big Daddy and Hit Girl. I thought that’s where the emotion could be.”

While Cage got his role easily, it took time before Aaron Johnson landed the role of Dave/Kick-Ass. Vaughn had turned down his audition tape without viewing it, but when the director finally watched it, he was certain Johnson was perfect for the role. “My take on it was he was a young lad, a comic book fan, who was shy with girls. He doesn’t have a whole lot going for him, so he tries to stand out from the crowd by becoming a superhero, and that’s when he becomes interesting,” Johnson says. “It’s teenage high-school humor mixed with dark, messed-up violence,” he adds.

The Red Mist character went to Christopher Mintz-Plasse after he read for the role of Dave. “I guess I had too much energy and charisma!” he laughs. Red Mist is a rich, but lame kid who desperately wants to garner the affection of his father. He may not be superhero-material, but Red Mist definitely makes a grand entrance with his red Ford Mustang, which he uses to cruise the streets of New York. One of the movie’s funniest scenes had Kick-Ass and Red Mist drive along while dancing. “We were just messing around with it,” says Johnson, “Sitting there and doing a ridiculous dance. It was hilarious. Matthew was like, ‘I might actually use that’. And he did!”

For Chloë Grace Moretz, the role of Hit Girl was something of a gift. “I was screaming for three days straight when I got the role because I was so much looking forward to doing a fantasy movie and wearing a superhero costume.” Everyone agrees that Hit Girl is the superhero who puts the kick-ass in KICK-ASS. Scene after scene, Hit Girl mows down scores of D’Amico’s henchmen like an unstoppable squirrel that’s armed to the teeth. “I did about four to five months of training before the movie started. It was crazy. I did a thousand crunches a night and like 70 push-ups and 70 pull-ups.” The training also involved getting to grips with Hit Girl’s weapons, including her favorite, a butterfly knife. “It’s like a third hand,” she says. “By the end of the filming,” admits Johnson, “she could take me and Chris on at once, and take us both down. She became a mini-Schwarzenegger!”

See the cool gang of four do some nasty stunts in KICK-ASS as it hits theaters on April 16. Released by Viva International Pictures.

Check out my movie review here.