Hailee Steinfeld

Hailee Steinfeld made one of the most impressive feature debuts by any young film actor in recent history with her unforgettable portrayal of vengeful Mattie Ross in the Coen Brothers’ magnificent adaptation of Charles Portis’ modern classic Western, True Grit (2010), with Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Barry Pepper, and which earned one of the highest box-office numbers of the Coens’ career ($252.3 million), and gathered ten Oscar nominations but shockingly won none of them.

Steinfeld took on a role originated by another literary hero—the great Canadian short story writer Alice Munro—for the Liza Johnson-directed Hateship, Loveship (2013), with Kristen Wiig, Guy Pearce, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Nick Nolte, and premiering at the Toronto film festival. Steinfeld played major support in writer-director John Carney’s Begin Again (2013), co-starring Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo, and grossing a robust $65.7 million on a $8 million budget. Hailee Steinfeld played Juliet to Douglas Booth’s Romeo in the widely denounced Carlo Carlei/Julian Fellowes’ “free” adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet (2013), with Damian Lewis, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Stellan Skarsgård, and Paul Giamatti.

A supporting role in writer-director Gavin Hood’s much-anticipated but commercially disastrous big-screen version of Ender’s Game (2013) was next for Steinfeld, playing opposite Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, and Abigail Breslin. Steinfeld’s next high-profile role was co-starring with Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, and Connie Nielsen in the McG-directed thriller, 3 Days to Kill (2014), written by Luc Besson and grossing $52.6 million.

Besson (as producer) picked Steinfeld again for the poor-grossing Western, The Homesman (2014), co-starring Tommy Lee Jones (who also co-wrote and directed), Hilary Swank, Meryl Streep, John Lithgow, James Spader, Tim Blake Nelson, and Jesse Plemons. The third Western drama for young Steinfeld was The Keeping Room (2014), directed by Daniel Barber and co-starring Brit Marling and Muna Otaru and premiering at the Toronto film festival.

For her first voice performance for the big screen, Hailee Steinfeld had a lead role in the English-language version of the acclaimed Studio Ghibli version of Joan G. Robinson’s beloved children’s novel, When Marie Was There (2014), directed and co-written by Hiromasa Yonebayashi. Steinfeld reunited with co-star Asa Butterfield for writer-director Shari Springer Berman’s and Robert Pulcini’s film version of Eleanor Henderson’s novel, Ten Thousand Saints (2015), with Ethan Hawke, Avan Jogla, Emile Hirsch, and Emily Mortimer, and premiering at the Sundance film festival. Steinfeld was able to meld her acting and singing talents as co-lead in director-producer Elizabeth Banks’ mega-hit sequel, Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), co-starring Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Skylar Astin, Katey Sagal, and Banks, and topping $287 million globally.

Steinfeld turned teen spy in the larky Barely Lethal (2015), with Dove Cameron, Thomas Mann, Sophie Turner, Jessica Alba, and Samuel L. Jackson, and released theatrically by A24. After the little-seen action movie, Term Life (2016), with producer-star Vince Vaughn, Bill Paxton, Jonathan Banks, and Terrence Howard, Hailee Steinfeld turned in one of her best performances to date in writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig’s The Edge of Seventeen (2016), which won the New York Film Critics’ best first film award and co-starred Woody Harrelson, Kyra Sedgwick, and Haley Lu Richardson. Steinfeld reunited with her Pitch Perfect company for Pitch Perfect 3 (2017), directed by Trish Sie, co-written by Mike White, and earning $185.4 million globally.

For the sixth entry in the ongoing Transformers franchise, Steinfeld starred in the hit, Bumblebee (2018), with John Cena and Pamela Adlon, grossing a potent $468 million (on a $102 million budget) for Paramount. Hailee Steinfeld’s growing singing career shared her time with her movie and TV work, and her biggest feature role during the 2018-2024 period was as Gwen/Spider-Gwen in the acclaimed, ground-breaking animated trilogy of Spider-Man, including Into the Spider-Verse (2018), Across the Spider-Verse (2023), and Beyond the Spider-Verse (2024), also co-starring Shameik Moore (as Spider-Man), collectively grossing well over $1 billion for Sony.