Category: News

Hailee Steinfeld keeps her parents close. “I have a necklace they bought me for my birthday with my nickname, ‘Haiz,’ on it,” explains the actress-singer (her debut EP, which is available on iTunes, shares the name). “If I’m not wearing it, it’s in my bag.” The L.A. native, whose single “Starving,” with Grey and Zedd, is also on iTunes, digs into her Marc Jacobs knapsack.

Up in the Air
“When I travel, I always bring a jacket with a hood. I love flying, and that’s kind of like my eye mask when it comes to sleeping on the plane. And earphones. Those are my No. 1 things to have.”

Paper Trail
“I love handwriting any notes, ideas or lists, so I always have a small spiral notebook.”

Snap Hungry
“I carry around my Instax Mini 90 camera. I keep the photos in my wallet so they don’t bend. I have one of me and my whole family and my grandma, which is one of my favorites.”

Pony Tales
“The bottom of my bag is filled with hair ties. For some reason I always lose them and I don’t know how, because I have so many everywhere.”

Purple People
“One of my favorite emojis is the smiling devil face. I have it as a key chain because I use that emoji for any text response. I’m sure it’s next to my name in my friends’ phones.”

What else is inside Steinfeld’s knapsack? A Saint Laurent black leather wallet; an iPad mini; a rose gold iPhone 6 Plus inside a clear Sonix case emblazoned with emojis; a 14-foot iPhone charger; a makeup bag containing bronzer, mascara, lipstick, makeup brushes, eyeshadow brushes, a small eyeshadow palette, Too Faced foundation and Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector in Champagne Pop; sunglasses; Advil; Tums; Band-Aids; a couple of Starbucks gift cards; multiple pairs of socks and a pack of Wrigley’s 5 Spearmint Rain gum.

Actress and singer Hailee Steinfeld is determined to sell out stadium’s on her own but in the mean time she will get by with a little from her friend Meghan Trainor.

As a young actress Steinfeld was nominated for an Oscar and a slew of other awards for the movie True Grit. She went on to various other roles in films such as Ender’s Game, Begin Again, and Pitch Perfect 2. Her latest project is called The Edge of Seventeen and stars Woody Harrelson, Blake Jenner and Kyra Sedgwick.

Her debut EP, Haiz, unleashed the radio-friendly hit “Love Myself” and teamed her with the group DNCE for “Rock Bottom.” The album was co-written by Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter, the openly gay singer from Semi Precious Weapons.

Her new single is a collaboration with Zedd and the duo Grey. She packs up the music for a tour that brings her to Chicago.

Hi, Haillee. I’m excited you are coming back to the Windy City.
Me, too—always.

When we last talked, it was on a red carpet. Where does your style come from?
I have an amazing stylist that I work with. I think it is a form of expression. I like to use it as another playful aspect of what I do, going out performing and throwing on what I feel in the moment and comfortable in. Working with stylists is such a collaborative relationship and very fun for me.

Any costume changes while you are on stage?
I don’t during my set, but I have been playing around with fashion city by city.

Did you meet DNCE on your recent radio tour that led to your singing with them?
I have actually known Joe Jonas for a couple of years. We are partial label mates so that came together through that.

It was so fun being on that tour with them because the song came shortly after so I spent time with them on the road. Continue reading “Hailee Steinfeld shows ‘True Grit’ in acting, music”

Hailee Steinfeld is in Rogers, Arkansas, and she’s super pumped about it—as she is about every part of being on tour. “Being in a different city every single night and performing for a new crowd is so exciting,” says the singer and actress, whom you miiiiiiiiight know from her star turn in True Grit, her plucky-newcomer Pitch Perfect 2 role, or, in fact, any one of her Hollywood hurrahs. (Psst: She’s got a new movie coming out in September, the hilarious-looking The Edge of Seventeen.)

But right now, Hailee—or Haiz, per the name of her debut EP—is on the road with Meghan Trainor, plying the crowds with her very own frank, emphatic pop tunes. The two singers bonded after Trainor gave Steinfeld a pep talk during last year’s Jingle Ball—”she’s so cool and so genuine”—sparking a friendship that’s turned into a national tour.

“Starving,” Steinfeld’s newest single, is a pretty, guitar-laced collaboration with Zedd and production team Grey that gives us major “More Than Words” vibes—updated with some nifty electro touches, of course. The dream team came together over the Zedd-penned ballad, which Steinfeld said she “immediately fell in love with” when she heard it, and it’s not hard to see why. We asked the teen wonder about the five albums that changed her life, and you might be surprised at just what’s influenced her musical taste. (Here’s your official “major throwback” alert.)

‘Hotel California’ by The Eagles

This album represents so many things—family memories, and family vacations and trips. I saw the Eagles perform years ago and I remember not really paying much attention to what was going on with the audience, but I knew every word to every song. I was too young to have an attention span long enough to sit still through the entire show, but I remember looking at my parents enjoying this show and the music. This album is represented in so many family memories that, to this day, they come back to me like nothing else, when I hear songs off this album. We would take boating trips every summer, my family and I—every time I hear “Hotel California,” I think of being on the boat and being with my family. Continue reading “Hailee Steinfeld Tells About The Deep Cuts And New Inspirations That Have Changed Her Life”

If you aren’t familiar with Hailee Steinfeld yet, you might be living under a pop-culture rock. Besides the fact she’s already been acting for nine years (including lead roles in the “True Grit” and “Romeo and Juliet” remakes), Steinfeld rocketed onto the scene last year when she showed off her pipes in “Pitch Perfect 2,” became a regular member of Taylor Swift’s ever growing “squad” and released her debut EP “Haiz.”

“It’s two completely different ways of expressing yourself,” she says by phone from Albuquerque, N.M., on a rare day off. “With music, there’s more sort of an immediate reaction to things you do and choices you make. With acting, I can express myself through the look and the life of someone else.”

Steinfeld is in the middle of touring with female-empowerment icon Meghan Trainor as the opening act for her “Untouchable” tour. The tour started July 14, around the same time the trailer for Steinfeld’s upcoming film “The Edge of Seventeen” was also released.

“For this film, I play someone trying to make it through not just school, but just their teenage years, as am I,” says the 19-year-old. “I was home-schooled and a lot of people say, ‘Oh, you skipped right through all that drama.’ But I didn’t. I dealt with my own things, and it’s nice to have those outlets to express some of those things that I’ve been through. I’m honored to be a part of telling [this story].”

The film — due out in late September — sees Steinfeld opposite industry veterans Woody Harrelson and Kyra Sedgwick. Young professional that she is, pairing up with big names is something she’s been doing since she was 13, and her budding music career only creates more opportunities for collaborations with other rising names in pop. Continue reading “Hailee Steinfeld: Music, Music And More Music”

Hailee Steinfeld got her start in movies—she was nominated for an Oscar for her work in the 2010’s True Grit—but the Pitch Perfect actress began dividing her time with music last fall when she released her infectious debut EP, HAIZ.

Now, the 19-year-old is on the road opening for Meghan Trainor on her Untouchable Tour and just dropped a brand new collab, “Starving,” with new producing duo Grey, featuring Zedd. Between recent shows, Steinfeld caught up with EW about what fans can expect from her live show, adjusting to tour life, and why she loves watching Megatrons let loose.

This is your first tour, how are you liking being on the road?
It’s fun! I mean, it’s all so new to me—from driving through the night and waking up in another city to learning how to pack your bag or suitcase from the bus.

Did you draw inspiration from any other tours when you began to plan your show?
I saw Justin [Bieber] on the Purpose tour recently and I thought it was amazing. I remember having so many moments when I was like, “Oh my god, don’t forget this! Don’t forget this!” And I saw Britney [Spears] in Vegas—the production was unreal.

Do you have dancers with you on stage?
Taking dancers on the road seemed like the right idea for being able to go out there and hype people up for what you can expect from Meghan, so I have my four girls with me. They freestyle and do their own thing, but we have a ton of moments when we dance together. I love nothing more than when I see artists interact with whoever is with them on stage—their band or dancers or whatever. Continue reading “How Justin Bieber and Britney Spears inspired Hailee Steinfeld’s tour”

Being an opening act can be tough. People are often still arriving to the venue and aren’t always familiar with the music, but while performing at The Greek Theatre as the opening act for Meghan Trainor Friday night, Hailee Seinfeld didn’t seem to have any trouble holding the crowd’s attention…with the help of a little glitz.

Steinfeld’s seven-song set started with a couple of her back-up dancers walking on stage throwing glitter around. When she took the stage, she seemed completely comfortable, stopping between songs to tell cute but personable stories and even blowing a dust of glitter herself during one of the small interludes of choreographed dancing.

Hailee Steinfeld has often been given the dubious title of “actress-turned-singer” in the press in reference to her breakout performance in the film True Grit. Onstage at The Greek, the singer explained that she started singing and acting at the same time, and it just so happened that acting took off first and consumed her time for awhile. It wasn’t until Steinfeld landed a part in Pitch Perfect 2 that she was able to segue into her other passion of singing.

This was the story told right before Hailee sang her song “Flashlight” from the a’capella-based dramedy. Though a cute song, it was probably my least favorite of the night. It wasn’t bad by any means, but being a song from a movie, it seemed the least personal and not something I would download to my iPod anytime soon. Still, I can see why she included it as it does represent a milestone in her career. Continue reading “Show Review: Hailee Steinfeld @ The Greek Theatre”

To say this past week has been a busy one for Oscar-nominee Hailee Steinfeld would be an understatement. On top of releasing a new track with Zedd and seeing the trailer debut of her coming-of-age feature-length film Edge of Seventeen, she’s currently traveling the U.S. as a supporting act for Meghan Trainor’s The Untouchable Tour. At the time of our call, she’s on a tour bus on the way to Vegas.

“I think taking things day by day is really how I tend to handle everything because it gets to be very overwhelming and it’s easy to just say, ‘I need a break.’” But Steinfeld has shows no signs of breaking. Following her run of shows with Trainor, it’s back to releasing more music—most likely another EP, following 2015’s Haiz. “When I get back from tour at the end of the summer I will be back in the studio finishing everything up and getting it out for everybody to hear.”

Steinfeld has started shaping a name for herself in music by making radio-friendly anthems like self-love track “Love Myself,” which went platinum in the U.S., and most recently, “Starving” featuring Zedd and Grey. To top it off, the singer has posted more than one Instagram of her working with producer BloodPop, whose collaborators include Justin Bieber, Fifth Harmony, Tinashe, CL, Pia Mia, and more. Given the track record of both, the output of their sessions is sure to be fire.

When not making sounds that ignite the dance floor, Steinfeld is filling up her schedule learning lines for films. Also released this week was the trailer to Edge of Seventeen, which sees the actress take on an emotionally intense and sardonically funny role of a teen struggling to fit in in high school. It’s a well-rounded role that’s likely more taxing than her spot as new girl Emily in the fun family-favorite comedy Pitch Perfect 2. Continue reading “Hailee Steinfeld is Living Fully in the Moment”