Things You Didn't Know About Hailee Steinfeld

Hailee Steinfeld knew early on that she wanted to be an actor. As a kid she saw her older cousin acting, appearing in commercials, and modeling, and she sensed that it was something she wanted to pursue. "To see my cousin doing that was really inspiring, and I wanted to do it," Steinfeld revealed to Vanity Fair.

So, the next thing she did was go to her mom and ask if she could do it, too. Her mom said yes, but there was one condition — acting classes. "For the acting part of it, she made me study for a year," Steinfeld shared with the publication. Only after she'd been to classes for a year (and done a year of modeling) did her mom agree it was time for the acting to begin. "I was eight years old when I started taking acting classes, when I started studying acting," she shared in W Magazine. "I got an agent at around nine." She told the outlet that she made her acting debut in "a guest-starring role in a sitcom called 'Back to You.'"

Steinfeld also appeared in a Soda Pop Girls commercial which, as she shared with Vanity Fair, was her "first time in front of the camera." Neither that TV spot nor that sitcom cameo would be her last time in front of the camera. It definitely seems like the year of acting classes paid off for the actor.

Nothing compares to the confidence of a thirteen-year-old — and Hailee Steinfeld was no exception. As a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed teenager, Steinfeld wasn't too scared of, you know, acting opposite very famous movie stars in her feature debut.  "If I had to make [True Grit] now, I would be incredibly intimidated, but when I was thirteen ... I was like 'you should be intimidated of me,'" she joked in a 2017 video for W Magazine. 

However, she used her confidence wisely and took it upon herself to lay down the law on set with a "bad boy jar" for her the rest of the cast, which included Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and Josh Brolin. "I charged $5 dollars for the 'f' word and a dollar for all the other words," she shared with Access Online in 2010. To make it fair, her co-stars decided she had to throw in a couple quarters every time she uttered the word "like." By the time they'd wrapped filming, the bad boy jar collected an impressive $350 dollars — that's quite a few likes and cuss words. Rather than pocketing the swear jar cash, she ended up giving that money away — and then some. "I matched it and donated it to Alzheimer's Foundation," she told Vulture. Cussin' for a cause.

Hailee Steinfeld always knew she wanted to have a music career alongside acting. "It was always there and always part of my plan," she revealed to Collider in 2017. "I started making music — writing and recording — around the same time I got into acting, which was... young." However, rather than try to launch a pop career the exact instant her film career took off, she wanted the pivot to feel more organic.

"I was secretly sort of hoping that the singing could happen [so] I could segue into it through a movie," she admitted to KTLA 5 a few years later. Ask and ye shall receive, right? "Sure enough, with 'Pitch Perfect 2,' I was given the opportunity to sing and show people that it was something that I loved," Steinfeld explained to Collider.

After starring in "Pitch Perfect," Steinfeld released "Flashlight," which was the hit song she sang in the film. "Then after that, I signed a record deal and I'm making music now," she said to Collider. Steinfeld released her debut album "Haiz" in 2016 and has since gone on to achieve major success with songs such as "Starving" and "Let Me Go."

Like a lot of child actors, Hailee Steinfeld was homeschooled. While it wasn't always the best experience, she said being homeschooled from the sixth grade onward helped her better wrap her mind around Nadine, her character in "The Edge of Seventeen." "I really sort of understood that feeling of isolation and alienation when you're placed in the middle of a high school and you don't know where to look or where to go or who to try and be friends with," she admitted to W Magazine.

Filming for "The Edge of Seventeen" took place in an actual high school while school was still very much in session, but Steinfeld said she didn't enjoy the experience. When "kids would be filling the hallways," she told Variety she felt completely out of place. "I was like, 'This is what anxiety really feels like,'" the actor said.

In a 2016 Seventeen interview, Steinfeld opened up about the bullying she experienced while still attending school, which ranged from prank calls to physical threats and harassment. While traumatic, these experiences no doubt helped Steinfeld relate to her character's isolation and hopelessness.

Hailee Steinfeld always finds time in her busy schedule for self-care. As she shared with Rookie in 2015, that can mean "not doing anything," listening to music, or journaling. The actor and singer finds writing to be one of the best ways to express her feelings and said it's something she does most days. "I have some form of paper and pen in my bag at all times and I jot down anything I'm feeling. Even if it's just notes in my phone, I'll write something in," she told the outlet.

Steinfeld also finds that working out is one of the best things for managing her mental health, "even if it's just 15 minutes," she said in Shape. "I always feel like spending time in the gym is a relief. I go in and put my headphones in and kind of just separate myself from everything for a while ... I definitely walk away feeling more relaxed," she explained.

Steinfeld said she got her love of fitness from her dad, who is a personal trainer at home and on set. "He taught me many years ago how to kickbox," she recalled on "Today." As a thank you, she wanted him to be in her "Most Girls" music video. "I had him on set to make sure I was doing everything right, and then snuck him in the video," she said.

Hailee Steinfeld learned to shoot a gun for "True Grit" and was challenged emotionally in "The Edge of Seventeen," but that didn't compare to what she had to do for the "Transformers" spinoff "Bumblebee." For most of the film, Steinfeld's scene partner was nothing more than a "tennis ball on a stick," which was a pretty big learning curve for the actor. "It's definitely up there on my list of things I didn't think I could do until I did it. It was definitely a challenge," she revealed on "Today."

In the flick, Steinfeld's character Charlie rescues and restores the lone Transformer Bumblebee, who was created using CGI... which meant she acted in a lot of scenes by herself. "With 'Transformers,' being in the real world, having every element except the one that actually might matter the most, is quite difficult," she admitted to MTV News.

However, being the first female protagonist in the franchise made her all the more determined to do a good job, even during the scenes she did alone. "To play this particular role and to be able to tell our own kind of 'Transformers' story is really what is so special," explained the actor. Steinfeld also noted how much she loved that it felt like "an honest portrayal of a young female growing up."

Hailee Steinfeld didn't always pen her own music. "I would sit in writing sessions and I would be curious, and ask questions, and be fascinated by how the whole thing worked, but I didn't physically write," she explained to Rookie. The singer added that writing music was something she wanted to take the time to learn and didn't feel she had to dive straight into.

Steinfeld did start composing her own music around the time she released her first album "Haiz," in 2016. However, she wasn't fully confident in putting her writing out there at the time. In fact, she said it made her feel incredibly exposed. "There's this sense of vulnerability — in that that's my name and my voice and my experience, not a character," Steinfeld admitted.

However, being around so much poetry on "Dickinson" gave the actor-singer a new appreciation for her own writing ability. "I was really inspired by her," Steinfeld gushed to DuJour. "I feel like I can write anything and everything and nothing is wrong, and there's no reason to hold back."

Hailee Steinfeld has landed the gig of her dreams. As she told Cosmopolitan, being part of the MCU as Kate Bishop in the Disney+ series "Hawkeye" is a career highlight. The show, which is about Kate and her relationship with the retired Avenger Clint Barton, will see the young archer take on the Hawkeye mantle and become the newest bow-and-arrow-wielding avenger.

Since the role meant so much to her — and she spends most of her time in the show with a bow and arrow in her hand — Steinfeld wanted to make sure her archery technique was perfect. "I'd watched so many videos of actors and professional archers doing it, so by the time I got to the archery range ... I knew what the heck I was doing," she explained in Entertainment Weekly. "[I] felt ready to go [but] my instructor looked at me and was just like, 'Okay. We got work to do,'" she recalled. Ouch, maybe you can't actually learn everything from YouTube videos.

However, it seems like Steinfeld going all-in with her training might have been overkill, anyway. "The first time we met, Jeremy [Renner] was like, 'Listen, you're going to get there and you're not even shooting a real arrow, it's all CGI,'" Steinfeld said in EW. Despite that, Steinfeld said she was "still grateful to have the mechanics down." CGI or not, her bow and arrow work is right on target.