Chloë Grace Moretz and Tim Story reveal the tech challenges of 'Tom & Jerry The Movie' (exclusive)

Watch: Chloë Grace Moretz and Tim Story reveal tech challenges of Tom & Jerry The Movie

Chloë Grace Moretz says it was "crazy" to act alongside CGI versions of Tom and Jerry in the new live-action Tom & Jerry The Movie featuring the warring critters.

Moretz portrays hotel employee Kayla in the film, which is getting a digital premiere in the UK on Thursday 25 March. She recruits Tom in order to help her get rid of Jerry from the classy establishment before the wedding of a wealthy celebrity couple.

The 24-year-old star has to interact with multiple CGI characters in the movie, often with several sharing the screen with her at once.

Read more: Secrets from the set of Tom & Jerry

"All of the questions you're imagining right now in your head when you think about making this project were all of the questions I had going into it," she tells Yahoo Entertainment UK.

Moretz adds: "The unanimous answer across the board was that none of us really know the answers.

"We're just going to have to see where we're at on the day, see what the sequence needs, see what the scene is really needing and then work together to figure out how far we can go.

"I had the opportunity to work with amazing puppeteers but, once we really got into the swing of it, we realised the more I could improv opposite nothing allowed the animators to then not be pigeon-holed into doing exactly what the puppeteers did and it allowed the animators to go further and further as well."

Read more: Moretz talks about taking acting break

The director responsible for wrangling all of this computer-generated slapstick is Tim Story — best known for the noughties Fantastic Four movies and the recent Ride Along films.

"Sometimes, it was [tennis balls on sticks]. You just needed everybody's eye-line to be in the right place," he says of the technical challenges.

"But we even used puppeteers on this one, so that my actors would have someone to act up against and give them some kind of feedback so they could give the best performance they could.

"It's always difficult when the stars of your movie are not actually on set with you. So in order to pull that off, we did utilise a lot of different techniques and I hope in the end that audiences enjoy what we've presented here."

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Moretz says the process of getting the action right on set was a "mind-bending" journey for her, and one she wasn't always certain she had got right.

She adds: "Sometimes it took a few takes to figure it out and half the time I'd look at the director and be like: 'I don't know what I'm doing, but I hope that it ends up well.'"

Story says he was appreciative of Warner Bros and his creative team for enabling him to push the technical boundaries of the concept.

"It's so fun being in the world of filmmaking now, because you actually can pull off anything. All it takes is your creativity," he says.

"I don't remember ever getting pushback on something I wanted to do. That whole chase through New York was 'hey, can he go underneath a car?' and they were like 'sure!'. There was never a no."

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The human cast of Tom & Jerry The Movie also includes Michael Peña, Colin Jost and Rob Delaney, with the title characters voiced via archival recordings of William Hanna, Mel Blanc and June Foray — as well as new material from voice acting veteran Frank Welker.

Tom & Jerry The Movie will be available to rent at home in the UK via digital platforms from 25 March.

Watch: Trailer for Tom & Jerry The Movie