1996–present
Latest News: Hailee Steinfeld Stars in Sinners
Hailee Steinfeld stars in the new horror film Sinners, which arrived in theaters April 18. The feature, directed by Ryan Coogler, is a vampire flick set in the 1930s South. Steinfeld plays Mary, who is the love interest of Stack, one of the twins played by Michael B. Jordan.
Part of her preparation for the role included learning about her own family history. The actor, who has Black and Filipino heritage through her maternal grandfather, told People that playing the role of a multiracial woman had a personal impact on her. “I’m so grateful for the deeply personal connection that each of us have [to the material], mine being with my family history, with my grandfather, who I wish was still here to answer all the questions that I have that this movie raised for me,” she said.
In addition to acting, Steinfeld also wrote and performed the song “Dangerous” for the Sinners soundtrack. In an interview with Billboard, the 28-year-old said that she wanted the lyrics to show Mary’s “deep desire to be with Stack” despite how dangerous it is for them. “There’s a vulnerability in these characters that I really connected with, and I wanted my voice to reflect that,” she said.
Who Is Hailee Steinfeld?
Hailee Steinfeld is an actor and singer who rose to fame with her Oscar-nominated performance in True Grit. The Los Angeles native began acting at an early age, scoring her breakout role as tough-as-nails teen Mattie Ross in 2010’s True Grit when she was just 14 years old. A string of movie roles followed, including the 2013 hit Enders Game. After singing a cappella in Pitch Perfect 2 in 2015, Steinfeld landed herself a record deal and has released two EPs. She later earned a Golden Globe nomination for her role in 2016’s The Edge of Seventeen and starred in the limited series Dickinson as writer Emily Dickinson. Steinfeld’s latest project, Sinners, arrived in theaters in April 2025. The actor and singer is engaged to NFL quarterback Josh Allen.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Hailee Puring Steinfeld
BORN: December 11, 1996
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Sagittarius
Early Life
Hailee Puring Steinfeld was born on December 11, 1996 in Los Angeles to parents Cheri, an interior designer, and Pete Steinfeld, a fitness trainer. Hailee has one older brother, race car driver Griffin Steinfeld, and is the niece of actor and fitness trainer Jake Steinfeld.
Hailee began modeling and acting when she was 8 years old. She has said she caught the acting bug from watching her cousin Emmy winner True O’Brien star in TV commercials, but her mom insisted she take acting lessons for a year before she was allowed to begin auditioning. After studying at Cynthia Bain’s Young Actor Studio, she landed her first agent when she was 9 and began appearing in ads and TV commercials for stores like Gap and Kmart.
Hailee attended Ascension Lutheran, Conejo Elementary, and Colina Middle schools—all in Thousand Oaks, California—before beginning a home-schooling program. Cheri has credited a fourth-grade teacher, who recommended Hailee for a gifted arts program, with helping the family see her potential as an actor.
During this time, she gained acting experience, starring in several student films directed by aspiring directors at colleges such as University of Southern California, UCLA, and Chapman University. The emerging actor also had guest roles on the Fox sitcoms Back to You in 2007 and Sons of Tucson in 2010.
Hailee celebrated her high school graduation in June 2015, but by then, she was already an Academy Award–nominated star.
Movies and TV Shows
True Grit
At 14 years old, Steinfeld earned critical acclaim for her breakout role playing Mattie Ross, a headstrong teen intent to track down her father’s killer in the 2010 Western True Grit. To land the coveted role, she auditioned for directors Joel and Ethan Coen while wearing a homemade 1800s-style costume. “My very first audition was on the lot of Paramount, and I was put on tape and it was very nerve-racking,” she told Vanity Fair in December 2020. “I dressed the part—my mom threw me together an outfit from Salvation Army, made a skirt last minute for my form. I went in there as Mattie Ross.”
In the end, Steinfeld beat out more than 15,000 other actors to star alongside Hollywood heavyweights Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, and Matt Damon. She performed some of her own stunt work for the movie and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 2011. “I do feel like I freaking won the lottery with that whole thing. I mean, that role was incredible,” Steinfeld later told Entertainment Tonight in May 2020. “I couldn’t have dreamt of a better place to start.”
Romeo and Juliet and Ender's Game
On the heels of True Grit’s success, Steinfeld was chosen to be the face of Italian fashion brand Miu Miu and was cast as Juliet Capulet in an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Being that she was only 14 at the time, there was controversy over onscreen nudity in the script, which director Carlo Carlei said had to be revised to become more age-appropriate for the actor.
The film wasn’t released until 2013, the same year she appeared as Violet in the romantic drama Begin Again and as Petra Arkanian in the sci-fi action movie Ender’s Game. The following year, Steinfeld continued to show off her acting chops in movies such as 3 Days to Kill, The Homesman, and The Keeping Room.
Pitch Perfect Sequels
Steinfeld joined the Pitch Perfect franchise as Emily Junk in the musical comedy’s 2015 sequel, Pitch Perfect 2. The movie opened with the biggest box office tally ever recorded for a musical. Starring alongside Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, and Elizabeth Banks, Steinfeld sang in the movie and ended up scoring a recording contract with Republic Records less than a week after the film’s release. She reprised her role in the 2017 follow-up, Pitch Perfect 3.
The Edge of Seventeen, Bumblebee, and Spider-Man
Steinfeld, who made a cameo in Taylor Swift’s 2015 “Bad Blood” music video, took on another leading role in the coming-of-age comedy The Edge of Seventeen in 2016. For her performance as the angsty teen Nadine Byrd, the actor earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy in 2017.
Steinfeld, who stands at 5 feet, 7 inches tall, followed this with a starring role in the Transformers movie Bumblebee, which hit theaters in 2018. Continuing on in comic-based blockbusters, the actor provided the voice of Gwen Stacy, or Spider-Woman, in the 2018 animated superhero flick Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Steinfeld reprised her role in the 2023 sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and is set to return in the franchise’s third entry, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, in 2027.
Dickinson
For her next big project, Steinfeld was cast in the Apple TV+ comedy-drama series Dickinson, which premiered in 2019. She portrayed the titular character, 19th century poet Emily Dickinson, who rejects her family’s attempts to find her a husband and pursues a career in poetry as well as a relationship with her best friend, Sue. Steinfeld also worked as an executive producer on the anachronistic show.
She told L’Officiel in January 2020 that the she was immediately excited her drawn to the script, which included modern pop music instead of more historically accurate songs. “The amount of modern parallels you see are so surprising and heartbreaking but at the same time funny,” Steinfeld said. “I was so excited to just go in and say absolutely everything I was feeling, and I think again that has a lot to do with that Emily really was that person: she was so unapologetic.” Dickinson ran for three seasons before ending in 2021.
Hawkeye
Steinfeld then starred in the Marvel mini-series Hawkeye in 2021, portraying Kate Bishop, a skilled archer who becomes the superhero Hawkeye after Clint Barton of the Avengers, played by Jeremy Renner. She told Entertainment Weekly in November 2021 that she took archery lessons in Los Angeles to prepare for the role.
“I wanted [the archery] to be second nature by the time I got out to Atlanta to shoot, but the first time we met, Jeremy was like, ‘Listen, you’re going to get there and you’re not even shooting a real arrow, it’s all CGI,’” Steinfeld said. “But I was still grateful to have the mechanics down.” She later reprised her role as Kate Bishop in the 2023 movie The Marvels.
Arcane and Sinners
Steinfeld voiced Vi in the animated action-adventure series Arcane, beginning in 2021. The series, which was set in the video game League of Legends universe, ended after two seasons in 2024.
Her latest project is the horror movie Sinners, which arrived in theaters in April 2025. The feature, directed by Ryan Coogler, is a vampire flick set in the 1930s South. Steinfeld plays Mary, a multiracial woman, who is the love interest of one of the twins played by Michael B. Jordan.
The actor, whose maternal grandfather was Black and Filipino, told People that the role had a personal impact on her. “I’m so grateful for the deeply personal connection that each of us have [to the material], mine being with my family history, with my grandfather, who I wish was still here to answer all the questions that I have that this movie raised for me,” she said.
Songs
After signing with Republic Records, Steinfeld premiered her now-platinum debut single, “Love Myself,” in August 2015 followed by her EP Haiz three months later. Describing her anxieties with transitioning from acting to music, she told Marie Claire in January 2018: “As an actor, I’m masked by characters, protected by them. But as a musician, it’s my story, my voice, my face. It’s such a different kind of vulnerable.”
Steinfeld went on to drop a series of standalone singles, including 2016’s “Rock Bottom” with DNCE and “Starving” featuring Grey and Zedd, which reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year. In 2017, she collaborated with Alesso, Florida Georgia Line, and Andrew Watt on “Let Me Go”and was also featured on Machine Gun Kelly’s “At My Best.” In 2018, her song “Capital Letters” appeared on the Fifty Shades Freed movie soundtrack.
After opening for Katy Perry during the United Kingdom leg of her Witness: The Tour in June 2018, Steinfeld hit the road with Charlie Puth on his Voicenotes Tour. With a full-length album said to be on the way, she was featured on rapper Logic’s song “Ordinary Day” and released the song “Afterlife” in promotion of Dickinson in 2019.
In May 2020, Steinfeld released her second EP Half Written Story, which included the singles “Wrong Direction” and “I Love You’s.” At the time, the singer said the EP would be the first of a two-part project. Since then, she dropped the 2022 single “Coast” featuring Anderson.Paak as well as the upbeat “SunKissing” in 2023. Her latest track “Dangerous” is featured on the soundtrack for the movie Sinners, which she also stars in.
Fiancé Josh Allen
Steinfeld is engaged to Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen. The pair were first spotted together in May 2023 but didn’t confirm their relationship until more than a year later. While Steinfeld rarely discusses her romantic life, she and Allen made their relationship Instagram official in July 2024 when Allen sharing a photo of them in Paris. The couple got engaged soon after, with the NFL star proposing to Steinfeld on the beach in November 2024.
The actor told Who What Wear in February 2025 that two had been dating for two years when Allen opposed the question. “We were in Malibu, which is my happy place, and it was magical,” she said. “I’m so grateful that he did it the way he did so that I looked good, and we have these photos that we’ll have and cherish for the rest of our lives.”
Before Allen, Steinfeld dated singer Niall Horan for a brief period in 2018. She was also previously in a relationship with Instagram star Cameron Smoller from 2016 to 2017.
Net Worth
As of November 2024, Steinfeld has an estimated net worth of $25 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Quotes
- My very first audition was on the lot of Paramount, and I was put on tape and it was very nerve-racking.
- I love the film route and I’m going to try my hardest to stay on it.
- I realize how fortunate I am to have found what I love so young. I’ve had some really incredible opportunities.
- As an actor, I’m masked by characters, protected by them. But as a musician, it’s my story, my voice, my face. It’s such a different kind of vulnerable.
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Catherine Caruso joined the Biography.com staff in August 2024, having previously worked as a freelance journalist for several years. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she studied English literature. When she’s not working on a new story, you can find her reading, hitting the gym, or watching too much TV.
