Why Nimona needed Chloë Grace Moretz in the lead role

When a beloved graphic novel or cartoon character hits the big screen, they usually get something the source material can’t convey: an audible voice. The filmmakers behind Netflix’s Nimonabased on ND Stevenson’s webcomic turned graphic novel of the same name, faced the usual challenge of figuring out what the characters sounded like – and they did it quite well.

Riz Ahmed brings a nervous but moody voice to the wrongly accused techno-futurist knight Ballister Boldheart, while Eugene Lee Yang brings softness to Ballister’s cohort Ambrosius Goldenloin. But Chloë Grace Moretz’s evocative performance as Nimona really becomes the beating heart of the film.

Director Nick Bruno tells Polygon that Moretz made a perfect Nimona for many reasons.

“She’s incredibly funny, sharp, mischievous. But she also has a great soul to her, and all of that comes across in her voice,” he says. “Nimona is so impulsive and surprising. And another thing that Chloe does, which is great – she’s having fun playing around the room, just trying out things like different voices, and being surprising, and saying things super fast, or really slow, or really diabolical.

Moretz fully embodies the eclectic character, a rebellious shape-shifter who solves the most tricky situations by transforming into a large animal and rampaging through obstacles. But Nimona also has a very vulnerable side. She’s an outcast who doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere. Moretz sells that duality with her vocal performance, which has a brilliant growling edge, yet feels grounded in genuine emotion.

Image: Netflix

Stevenson says hearing what voice actors bring to his characters often informs his perception of the characters themselves. From the time he started the comic in his freshman year of college, he never really associated his characters’ dialogues with specific voices.

“Sometimes I am writing and I literally move my lips or make hand movements. I hear the cadence of the lines in my own voice in my head,” he says. “I don’t necessarily hear a character. […] I hear my own voice doing that voice.”

Stevenson adds that this was especially true for Nimona: “That’s literally, I think, what my internal voice sounds like. I had a hard time understanding someone expressing her. And then Chloe comes exploding into that character with all the energy and all that emotion in everything she is, and it just brought that character to life.

Nimona now streaming on Netflix.