Hailee Steinfeld Bio
Hailee Puring Steinfeld (born December 11, 1996) is an American actress and singer. She first gained widespread attention with her debut in the Coen brothers’ western film True Grit (2010), a performance that earned her nominations for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award. Over the following decade, Steinfeld built a versatile career across film, television, animation, and music, becoming one of the most recognizable young performers of her generation.
Beyond acting, Steinfeld has cultivated a parallel music career, releasing chart-successful singles and extended plays. She has also become a familiar face in major franchise films and streaming series, balancing indie drama, blockbuster action, voice work, and pop music with equal confidence.
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 of Cheri 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 great-uncle is former child actor Larry Domasin.
Steinfeld was raised in Agoura Hills and later in Thousand Oaks, California. She attended Ascension Lutheran School, Conejo Elementary, and Colina Middle School before being home-schooled from 2008 until her high school graduation in June 2015. Her family background is mixed; her father is Jewish and her mother is Christian, and Steinfeld has said she celebrates both. Her maternal grandfather, Ricardo Domasin, was of Filipino and African American descent.
Steinfeld’s interest in acting was sparked at age eight when her maternal first cousin, actress True O’Brien, appeared in a television commercial. She began pursuing roles shortly afterward, laying the foundation for a professional career that would begin in her early adolescence.
Path to Acting
Steinfeld began acting at age 10, appearing in several short films, including the award-winning She’s a Fox, in which she played Talia Alden. Her early experience in short-form projects helped her develop on-camera confidence before she auditioned for her first major feature role.
At 13, Steinfeld was cast as Mattie Ross in the Coen brothers’ adaptation of True Grit. The film was released internationally in December 2010 to strong reviews, with critics praising her ability to deliver dense dialogue and hold her own opposite veteran actors. Her performance earned her a nomination at the 83rd Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress, making her one of the youngest nominees in the category at that time.
Following the success of True Grit, Steinfeld was chosen in 2011 as the new face of the Italian designer brand Miu Miu, signaling her growing profile beyond film. She continued balancing her education with a rapidly expanding slate of acting projects throughout her teenage years.
Hailee Steinfeld Career
Early Career (2007–2015)
Steinfeld’s professional on-screen work began in 2007 with short films and small projects. Her casting in True Grit in 2010 transformed her trajectory, earning her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actress, a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, and a Critics’ Choice Movie Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
She went on to take on a series of varied roles in films such as Ender’s Game (2013), the Romeo and Juliet adaptation (2013), Begin Again (2014), and the English-language dub of When Marnie Was There (2015). In 2015, she appeared as The Trinity in Taylor Swift’s award-winning music video for “Bad Blood” and co-starred in Pitch Perfect 2, a performance that introduced her singing voice to a global audience and led to a recording contract with Republic Records.
Breakthrough (2015–2018)
After Pitch Perfect 2, Steinfeld released her debut single, “Love Myself”, in 2015, followed by the extended play Haiz. The single debuted at number 27 on the Billboard Pop Songs chart, marking the highest debut for a solo female artist on the chart in 17 years. Her next single, “Starving”, a collaboration with Grey featuring Zedd, became her biggest hit, going platinum in several countries and triple platinum in Canada.
In 2016, Steinfeld took on the lead role in the coming-of-age comedy The Edge of Seventeen, co-starring Woody Harrelson and Blake Jenner. The film was released to positive reviews, and her performance earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress. She continued her music career with the single “Most Girls” and reprised her Pitch Perfect role in Pitch Perfect 3 (2017).
In 2018, Steinfeld starred in the Transformers spin-off Bumblebee and provided the voice of Spider-Gwen in the Academy Award-winning animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. That same year, she also released “Back to Life” for the Bumblebee soundtrack and hosted the MTV Europe Music Awards in Bilbao, Spain.
Notable Works and Milestones
Steinfeld’s signature works include her Oscar-nominated debut in True Grit, her leading role in The Edge of Seventeen, and her standout voice performance in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. She has earned an Academy Award nomination, a BAFTA Award nomination, a Golden Globe Award nomination, and a 2017 Billboard Music Award for Top Covered Artist for her song “Most Girls”.
Hailee Steinfeld Award Nominations
Hailee Steinfeld has received multiple award nominations across her career in film. In 2011, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in True Grit. In 2016, she earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress for her leading role in The Edge of Seventeen, cementing her reputation as a critically respected dramatic performer.
Hailee Steinfeld Awards Won
Steinfeld has been recognized with several wins for her work in both music and television. She won a 2017 Billboard Music Award for Top Covered Artist for her single “Most Girls”. In 2020, the Apple TV+ series Dickinson, in which she starred as Emily Dickinson, won a Peabody Award, becoming the first series from the platform to receive the honor.
Hailee Steinfeld Family
Steinfeld is the daughter of Peter Steinfeld, a personal trainer, and Cheri Domasin, an interior designer. She has an older brother named Griffin. Her paternal uncle is fitness trainer and actor Jake Steinfeld, and her maternal great-uncle is former child actor Larry Domasin. Her maternal first cousin, actress True O’Brien, helped inspire her early interest in acting.
Personal Life
Steinfeld dated Instagram influencer 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 married on May 31, 2025, in California.
