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Hailee Steinfeld: The portrayal of women on screen is improving

Film star Hailee Steinfeld has said there has been a shift in the portrayal of women on screen, with characters who drive the plot becoming easier to find. “Female characters are beginning to have more of a say in the meaning of the film,” she told the BBC. “They’re not just a love interest or a sidekick or a best friend.”

The actress first came to prominence at the age of 13 with an Oscar-nominated performance in the Coen brothers’ film True Grit. Since then, she has starred in the female-fronted comedy Pitch Perfect 2, while her latest film, coming-of-age drama Edge of Seventeen, closed the Toronto Film Festival to rave reviews.

Now 19, she said she had noticed a shift in the roles she was being offered as she grew older. “It feels like these female characters are more empowering and they’re more meaningful and they have important things to say that need to be heard. “For me, anyway, it’s a movement that’s been happening for a while and I’m lucky to be a part of it.” Her comments come shortly after actress Emily Blunt talked about a lack of strong female roles in Hollywood.

“There’s such a shortage that when they do arise there’s a bit of a feeding frenzy among my peers,” she told Vogue. The star, whose latest film is an adaptation of the novel Girl On The Train, said women needed to take matters into their own hands. “I would prefer that we actually go in a direction of producing and creating more jobs for women in the film industry as opposed to talking about it.”

Steinfeld is in the UK to promote her parallel career in pop – which she launched last year with the single Love Myself. Her current single, Starving, has just entered the US top 30 and is a major hit on streaming services – with 15 million plays on Spotify last week alone.

“I’m taken by surprise by how well it’s doing,” she told the BBC. “You can only hope when you go to sleep the night before you release a song that it will do this well. I’m completely overwhelmed by the response.”

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