In The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Chloë Grace Moretz tackles the challenging role of Cameron Post, a girl forced into gay conversion therapy. The film is adapted from the coming-of-age novel of the same name by Emily M. Danforth. Following a break to help her refresh her and figure out the next steps in her career partnered with a passion for LGBTQ+ activism, Moretz was the perfect actress to tackle this role. “I had taken a break from the movies that I was currently making to reconfigure my career and figure out who I wanted to be in this new phase of being an adult woman in this industry. The first movie I chose to do off the back of that break was The Miseducation of Cameron Post,” Moretz told me on the Tribeca Film Festival red carpet. “[What] was so important to me is the message, first and foremost, that’s being pushed in the movie: that you are perfect the way you are and no one should be able to tell you to hate yourself. No one should be able to be conditioned to hate themselves.”

She continued: “[The film] felt positive. It felt inline with who I am as a person, having two gay brothers in my family and being an advocate for the LGBT community since I was born pretty much. It just felt correct and it felt real and it felt right.”

Watch my interview with The Miseducation of Cameron Post actress Chloë Grace Moretz, below:

Moretz calls Cameron Post one of the strongest characters she’d played. “I wanted to play Cameron because she is such a positive energy and she’s one of the most strong characters I’ve ever played,” she said. “I think in a lot of ways I learned a lot emotionally about myself through walking through the paces of this movie. I reconnected with why I love acting so much and what my passion has always been through her.”

While the idea of gay conversion therapy seems archaic, it’s shockingly still an on-going issue that effects real-life LGBTQ+ youth to this day. “It’s not banned in any state technically. It’s only illegal to put minors into sexual conversion therapy in 11 states out of our entire country so the shocking reality of that was something that I learned during the process of making this movie,” Moretz said. “It’s an issue that is incredibly modern [and] incredibly realistic. The survivors I was meeting — they were 21, 22 years old and had just gotten out of sexual conversion therapy within the last year or two. It was a shockingly modern issue for me when I stepped onto this movie [because] I didn’t know that.”

She hopes the film will wake people up to the realities of this situation. “I hope it opens people’s eyes and makes them Google what is sexual conversion therapy and what does it mean,” Moretz continued, “[and] look up the ways that we can advocate for the LGBT community to get this banned because it’s shocking.”

While Moretz’s character is forced into gay conversion therapy, actress Melanie Ehrlich plays a character named Helen who willingly put herself into the camp. “Helen’s one of the other girls at the gay conversion therapy program that Cameron Post, played by Chloë Grace Moretz, is forced into it. I think my character might be the only one there that actually wants to be there,” Ehrlich told me on the Tribeca red carpet. “Most of the kids are put there by a family member who thinks there’s something wrong with them that needs to be fixed. I’m one of the few, if not the only one, who wants to be fixed and thinks she can be.”

But playing Helen wasn’t that easy for Ehrlich. “I had to work hard to get into that mindset because it’s just not something that I could fathom myself to put it mildly,” she said. “The fact that [gay conversion therapy] still exists…I didn’t realize how wide spread it was until a couple months ago when I first heard the statistics myself.”

Watch my interview with The Miseducation of Cameron Post actress Melanie Ehrlich, below:

She shared what she hopes LGBTQ+ youth take away from The Miseducation of Cameron Post. “There are fewer realistic depictions of LGBTQ+ youth than their should be [and ] I hope this goes a step further in assuring these youth that they’re not alone, [that] there are people in situations that are not ideal, and that there is a way out,” Ehrlich said. “They’re not crazy and they do have people that can and would like to support them.”

Broadway actress Kerry Butler shared her passion for this film and the struggle she has with how her religion treats the LGBTQ+ community. “I am a Christian, but I struggle with even saying that because so many Christians…the way they treat people who are gay, it’s just really horrible. I don’t think it’s the way Jesus would want people to treat [others],” Butler told me on the red carpet.

Butler plays Cameron’s aunt Ruth who becomes her legal guardian after the passing of her parents and is the one who puts her in the gay conversion therapy camp. While she doesn’t agree with her character’s methods, she’s glad the film doesn’t villainize those who do because she believes compassion can help them realize that what they’re doing is wrong. “The thing I love about this film is that it doesn’t portray anyone as evil. [My character is] doing this because she thinks it’s for the best. Hopefully it’s something that people everyone can see and be like wait a second we’re all called to love each other and accept each other and not change people just because of the way they were born,” she said. “That’s what I’m most proud of. That it doesn’t villainize the people who do this because that’s the only way you’ll get people to open their eyes and to see that.”

Watch my interview with The Miseducation of Cameron Post actress Kerry Butler, below:

She added that knowing these programs still exist today makes the film even more topical. “There are people who still believe in this today and that’s the scary part,” Butler said, adding: “I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I think Mike Pence is in favor of conversion camps.”

Butler shared a message of what she hopes the rest of the world will take away from watching The Miseducation of Cameron Post. “Accept people for who they are, love them for who they are, and don’t make judgements. Don’t put your own stuff on other people, just let them live their lives,” she said. “Like I don’t understand why there’s such a big thing about gay couples adopting, gay couples getting married. It doesn’t affect your life. Why do you have to make it your business?”

Watch my interview with The Miseducation of Cameron Post actors Christopher Dylan White, Isaac Jin Solstein, and Dalton Harrod, below:

Actor Christopher Dylan White had a message of rebellion to share with the LGBTQ+ community. “I hope they get a message that there’s freedom in being different and seeing hypocrisy of power at play,” White told me on the Tribeca red carpet. “Being a rebel within that is actually pretty acceptable and most young people are humans are feeling similarly.”

“In today’s world, where we are right now and who’s running the show, I think it’s amazing to look how far the LGBT community has come,” actor Dalton Harrod continued,” but look how much father we still need to go.”

He reiterated: “We need more rebels in the community.”

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