Hailee Steinfeld Bio
Hailee Puring Steinfeld (born December 11, 1996) is an American actress and singer whose career began when she was just a child in the late 2000s. She first captured worldwide attention as the sharp-tongued Mattie Ross in the Coen Brothers’ western remake True Grit (2010), a debut that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and made her one of the youngest actresses ever recognized in that category. Over the following decade, Steinfeld expanded her resume with franchise films, indie comedies, animated features, and a parallel career as a recording artist signed to Republic Records.
Beyond her breakout in True Grit, Steinfeld became a familiar face through the Pitch Perfect film series, the teen comedy The Edge of Seventeen (2016), the Transformers spin-off Bumblebee (2018), and the Apple TV+ period series Dickinson (2019–2021), in which she portrayed poet Emily Dickinson. She later joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Kate Bishop in Hawkeye (2021) and has voiced Gwen Stacy in the Oscar-winning Spider-Verse animated films. Her music catalog includes hit singles such as “Love Myself,” “Starving,” “Most Girls,” and “Let Me Go,” establishing her as a successful crossover artist in pop and dance-pop.
Early Life and Background
Hailee Puring Steinfeld was born on December 11, 1996, in the Tarzana neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. She is the younger of two children born to Cheri Steinfeld (née Domasin), an interior designer, and Peter Steinfeld, a personal trainer. She has an older brother named Griffin. Her paternal uncle is fitness trainer and actor Jake Steinfeld, and her maternal granduncle is former child actor Larry Domasin. Her maternal grandfather, Ricardo Domasin, was of Filipino and African American heritage.
Steinfeld’s family environment exposed her to creativity from an early age. Her maternal first cousin, actress True O’Brien, appeared in a television commercial when Steinfeld was eight years old, an experience that inspired the young Steinfeld to pursue acting for herself. Steinfeld’s father is Jewish and her mother is Christian, and she has publicly said she celebrates both traditions. She was raised in Agoura Hills and later in Thousand Oaks, California, attending Ascension Lutheran School, Conejo Elementary, and Colina Middle School. From 2008 until her June 2015 high school graduation, Steinfeld was home-schooled, a schedule that allowed her to balance schoolwork with a rapidly growing film career.
Path to Celebrity
Steinfeld began acting at the age of 10 and appeared in several short films, including the award-winning She’s a Fox, in which she played Talia Alden. Her early training consisted of audition work and on-set experience rather than formal acting schools, which gave her a practical foundation before she ever landed a major role. The turning point came when she was cast, at just 13 years old, as Mattie Ross in the Coen Brothers’ True Grit, beating out thousands of older candidates for the part.
The release of True Grit in December 2010 marked Steinfeld’s official arrival in Hollywood. Critics including Richard Corliss of Time magazine named her performance one of the Top 10 of 2010, while Roger Ebert, the Los Angeles Times, and Rolling Stone also praised her work. The role earned her a nomination at the 83rd Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress, as well as nominations from BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards. Within months of the film’s release, the Italian fashion house Miu Miu selected Steinfeld as the new face of the brand, signaling her transition from rising newcomer to established public figure.
Hailee Steinfeld Career
Early Career (2007–2014)
Following her True Grit breakthrough, Steinfeld quickly lined up a string of diverse projects. In 2011, she was cast at age 14 to play Juliet in a 2013 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, a role originally written for an older actress; the script was adjusted to make it age-appropriate. The film arrived in October 2013 to mixed reviews, but it gave Steinfeld experience on a Shakespearean adaptation early in her career. That same year, she starred as Petra Arkanian in the science-fiction action film Ender’s Game and played Violet, a supporting role in the romance-drama Begin Again, which opened in limited release in June 2014 before expanding widely.
During this same period, Steinfeld took on voice work and festival projects that broadened her range. In spring 2014, she narrated as the voice of Anne Frank for an exhibition at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. She was also announced to star in a number of adaptations, including Forgotten and Why We Broke Up, several of which remained in development for years. In 2015, she appeared in the music video for Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” alongside Kendrick Lamar, a clip that won Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards and gave Steinfeld a high-profile entry into music culture.
Breakthrough (2015–2018)
Steinfeld’s mainstream breakout arrived with Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), in which she played Emily Junk alongside Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, and Elizabeth Banks. Her performance of “Flashlight” in the film caught the attention of Republic Records, which signed her shortly afterward. In August 2015, she released her debut single “Love Myself,” which debuted high on the Billboard Pop Songs chart and was followed by her debut EP, Haiz, in November 2015. In September 2016, she took on the lead role in The Edge of Seventeen, a coming-of-age comedy written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig and co-starring Woody Harrelson and Kyra Sedgwick. The film earned widespread critical praise and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.
Between 2017 and 2018, Steinfeld continued to build her music catalog with singles such as “Most Girls,” “Let Me Go,” and “Back to Life,” while reprising her role in Pitch Perfect 3 (2017). On the acting side, she starred in the Transformers spin-off Bumblebee (2018), voicing Gwen Stacy in the Oscar-winning animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), and appearing in the limited-release film Barely Lethal (2015). She also hosted and performed at the 2018 MTV Europe Music Awards in Bilbao, Spain, marking her arrival as an international entertainer across film, television, and music.
Notable Works and Milestones
Steinfeld’s signature work remains True Grit, the role that announced her as a serious dramatic talent and earned her an Academy Award nomination at age 14. Her Pitch Perfect performances and her Golden Globe–nominated turn in The Edge of Seventeen cemented her as a leading young actress, while Bumblebee proved her box-office draw in action-driven franchises. As a singer, she earned a 2017 Billboard Music Award for Top Covered Artist for “Most Girls,” a milestone that confirmed her dual-screen-and-studio appeal.
Hailee Steinfeld Award Nominations
Across her career, Hailee Steinfeld has accumulated nominations from some of the most respected organizations in film. In 2011, she was nominated at the Academy Awards, the BAFTA Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards for her role as Mattie Ross in True Grit, making her one of the youngest performers ever recognized in the Best Supporting Actress category. In 2016, she added a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress for her leading performance in The Edge of Seventeen, reinforcing her reputation as a dramatic lead.
Hailee Steinfeld Awards Won
Although much of Steinfeld’s recognition has come in the form of nominations, she has also earned notable wins in both music and screen honors. She received a 2017 Billboard Music Award for Top Covered Artist for her single “Most Girls,” and her voice work on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse contributed to that film’s Academy Award win for Best Animated Feature in 2019. The Apple TV+ series Dickinson, in which she starred as Emily Dickinson, won a Peabody Award in 2020, becoming the first Apple TV+ series to receive that distinction.
Hailee Steinfeld Family
Hailee Steinfeld was raised in a close-knit Los Angeles family alongside her older brother, Griffin. Her father, Peter Steinfeld, works as a personal trainer, and her mother, Cheri Domasin, works as an interior designer. Her paternal uncle is fitness trainer and actor Jake Steinfeld, and her maternal cousin is actress True O’Brien, who first sparked Hailee’s interest in performing. The family supported her home-schooling arrangement during her teen years so she could pursue acting commitments.
Personal Life
Steinfeld dated Instagram personality Cameron Smoller from 2016 to 2017 and Irish singer Niall Horan from 2017 to 2018. She began dating Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen in May 2023, and the couple went public with their relationship in July 2024. Allen proposed on November 22, 2024, and they announced their engagement one week later before marrying on May 31, 2025, in California. On December 12, 2025, the couple announced via Instagram that they were expecting their first child together, and Steinfeld announced the birth of their daughter on April 2, 2026.
