Let Me In director Matt Reeves told us yesterday that finding young actors unfamiliar with the film’s source material, the Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In, would be key to “pulling off the [film’s] emotional complexity.†At the Let Me In panel today, the adorable Chloe Moretz admitted that, even now, she still hasn’t seen all of the original: “My mom won’t let me watch the whole film,†she said, adding that her mother screens her scripts before handing them off to her. Reeves said he asked Steven Spielberg for advice on working with such young actors, and Spielberg told him: “Let them come up with stuff that makes you choose what you’re going to do, and have them keep a journal in character.â€
Moretz didn’t shield her eyes, however, when a clip from Let Me In was screened: Set in the eighties, it featured the characters Owen and Abby on a date at an arcade. (Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?†scores the scene, fittingly.) Outside, in the snow, Abby asks Owen the infamous line from the original: “Would you still like me even if I wasn’t a girl?â€