Jeffrey Dean Morgan will reteam with his Texas Killing Fields co-star Chloe Moretz for Karyn Kusama‘s The Rut.  According to Variety, the gritty indie drama is described as a cross between Winter’s Bone and Into the Wild, and “follows a teenage girl who aims to win her father’s approval by surrounding herself with danger and adventure as she journeys into the wilderness alone to hunt deer.”  Morgan will play the father and Moretz will play the daughter.  While I think Kusama misunderstood the tone of Diablo Cody‘s script for Jennifer’s Body, hopefully she’ll have more luck with The Rut.  She’s certainly got the talent when it comes to her lead actors.

Morgan will be seen later this year in the long-delayed remake of Red Dawn, the horror thriller The Possession, Bruce Beresford‘s Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding, and Starz’ new TV series, Magic City.  As for Moretz, she’ll next be seen in Tim Burton‘s Dark Shadows and the atrocious indie film Hick (although she’s good in it).

When actress Chloe Grace Moretz says that she’s not just a normal 13-year-old girl, it’s very easy to believe her. Having begun her entertainment career at the age of five, as a model in New York City, she moved with her family to Los Angeles and has been booking acting jobs non-stop ever since.

After various television and film roles, she was brought to the attention of adult audiences with her role as Hit Girl, a ferocious, potty-mouthed 11-year-old in Kick-Ass, the action-packed adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic book of the same name. She then decided to follow up that memorable performance with her current feature, the haunting horror film Let Me In, in which she plays the eerie and mysterious 12-year-old Abby, who turns out to be a vicious vampire that needs blood to survive.

While doing promotion on that film’s opening weekend, Chloe Moretz spoke to Collider in this exclusive phone interview about relating to a character like Abby, doing her own physical stunts and being very proud of her work in the film. She also talked about her work in the psychological thriller The Fields, the experience of shooting in 3D with Martin Scorsese for Hugo Cabret, her first two leading roles in the upcoming features The Rut and Hick (she says Kirsten Dunst is in talks for this), bringing the popular goth character Emily the Strange to life in live-action form and the chance of a Kick-Ass 2 ever happening. Check out what she had to say after the jump.

Looking to recover from the critical and commercial failure of Jennifer’s Body, director Karyn Kusama is moving in a new direction with her next project, The Rut.  According to 24 Frames, the plot revolves around “a father-daughter relationship and centers particularly on hunting, as a daughter must learn the tricks of hunting and archery taught to her by her father after said father goes missing.”  Details are scarce at this early stage, but the wording of the article makes it sound as though Kusama will write as well as direct.

Chloe Moretz is in talks to star as the daughter, which is pretty much all it takes to hook me.  If she finalizes a deal, this sounds like a nice companion piece to the father-daughter relationship in Kick-Ass.  For that matter, the same could potentially be said for Moretz’s role in Let Me In (in theaters October 1st).  Maybe I’m reading into things too much — when you’re 13-years-old, I’m sure many roles call for you to interact with a father (or father figure) in a meaningful way.