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Interview for Harper’s BAZAAR Magazine

She may be only 19 years old, but Hailee Steinfeld has been famous for six years. She first vaulted to international attention at age 14 when her performance as a gun-toting farm girl in the Coen brothers’ 2010 epic, True Grit, earned her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. “Entering Hollywood so young, I don’t think I was aware of anything, other than the fact that I was having fun, in a serious way,” Steinfeld says, adding sheepishly, “I had no idea that asking 500 questions on set every day was too much.”

While the acting plaudits rolled in, Steinfeld was also quietly working on music,”since my parents bought me an amplifier and microphone when I was, like, eight—the worst thing they could have done to themselves!” Then, last year, she used her role as a college a cappella singer in Pitch Perfect 2 to unveil her voice, which opened the door for a record deal with Republic, her debut EP, Haiz (so-called for her fan-given nickname), and its megahit single, “Love Myself,” which broke 80 million views on YouTube.

Basically, Steinfeld knows how to make an entrance. “Love Myself” ‘s innuendo-filled lyrics stirred a media frenzy that was further intensified when Steinfeld appeared in the music video wearing a leotard emblazoned with the words SELF SERVICE. The formerly prim, headband-wearing teen, it seemed, had gone a little Miley.

“Obviously it was something I was aware of,” Steinfeld says playfully of the lyrical interpretations. Is it sex-positive? “It’s about how much power there is in self-love and being able to provide for yourself,” she says. “I don’t think loving yourself is easy, but I’m realizing the importance of it more and more.”

Steinfeld became a style star long ago, beginning with a Miu Miu campaign in 2011, and today hitting the red carpet in a series of jumpsuits and looks from Valentino, Stella McCartney, and Rosie Assoulin. The conversation turns to beauty, and she proclaims herself chairman of the Kate Moss fan club. “It’s not like top five—she’s my number one,” she says, admitting that “I carry pictures of Kate Moss to the salon” and to her makeup artist, Stephen Sollitto, with whom she’s worked since True Grit. But Steinfeld’s best makeup tips, and often her makeup itself, she steals from best friend Sophie Wood. “I nabbed her Laura Mercier Eye Art Artist’s Palette—shhh,” Steinfeld confesses. Her latest trick? “I use Scotch tape to get my eyeliner right, basically like a stencil. Sophie always sends me video links for new things she’s learned. Thankfully no one’s walked in on me attempting it yet!”

In part, Steinfeld attributes her growing self-assurance to the examples set by her group of closest female friends, better known as Taylor Swift’s Squad™. After meeting Swift five years ago through Emma Stone, Steinfeld appeared in the pop star’s 2014 viral “Bad Blood” music video, essentially one big, glittering, music-industry-backed girls’ night (“plus Kendrick Lamar!” she adds). Of the posse’s much Instagrammed and keenly tracked affairs, she asserts (almost apologetically), “A lot of the time it really is just baking cookies.” She’s equally adoring of Lena Dunham, who she says is “like a big sister, there to listen to anything, anytime,” and Barely Lethal costar and Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner. (“It’s always a massive reunion with us, even if it’s only been, like, two weeks.”)

Recently, Steinfeld has also been palling around with Joe Jonas, whom she first met at an Oscars after-party in 2011, and teamed with his band, DNCE, to debut a new version of her single “Rock Bottom” at the Good Morning America post-Oscars show this past February. “He’s a great friend,” she says of Jonas. “There’s a photo of us from that party that resurfaced and is completely hilarious because we look exactly the same now.”

Steinfeld is acutely aware of her age and for now still enjoys “being the youngest one at the party.” Living with her parents and brother, Griffin, 22, in a suburb of Los Angeles gives her a built-in support system—and a ride to auditions. “I don’t like driving in L.A., so I’ll beg my mom.” Does she have her eye on a bachelorette pad? “I think my parents are like, ‘Please will you move out?’ ” She sighs. “But every time I get emotionally invested in getting my own place, I leave for months, and all I want to do is come home to my family.”

A typical day for Steinfeld entails “seeing my acting coach before heading to an audition or a meeting with a director. From there I’ll go straight into the studio, where I end my day because I spend as much time there as I can. Then I’ll go home, have dinner with my family, shower, and do it again.” She also has a beach-bum side and can often be found on a towel, blasting Rihanna’s “Work” while warbling along.

Does that leave time for romance? “I mean, there’s always time for dating,” she says, though she declines to identify any particular suitors by name. (To ready herself, she’s currently reading the hit how-to book Date Like a Man.) “I do feel that right now, though—and I hate saying this—my top priority is what I’m working on. It’s that and family, and then everything else.”

What Steinfeld is working on includes a full-length studio-album follow-up to Haiz, which will be out later this year and will feature her own lyrics and compositions. In a dream world, that would be followed by collaborations with other artists. Alesso, for example, “would be pretty freaking cool.” Steinfeld’s new high-school comedy, Besties, costarring Woody Harrelson, hits theaters in the fall, before she starts filming Pitch Perfect 3, slated for a 2017 release. Much like her go-getter character, Emily, Steinfeld says she wouldn’t mind slipping an original or two into its soundtrack. “If they want it—oh, my God, absolutely!”

Like her career, singing and acting make beautiful music together. Why decide between the two, anyway? “I won’t,” she pronounces. “I’m a performer.”

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