Hailee Steinfeld brings poise to difficult dialogue and feeling to young women who struggle to explain themselves. We rate her most when a part allows both, and Gwen Stacy gives us the clearest reason to keep watching.
Fi1m perspective
Gwen Stacy drums alone while the walls run red in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), and Steinfeld tells us in voiceover that Gwen has never been able to tell anyone the truth. We were moved by that prologue because the changing paint makes her distress visible without a speech spelling it out. Steinfeld shares the work with the animation. She does not need to supply everything we feel about Gwen, and the performance is better for that. It is the part we would recommend first to anyone wondering what she can do.
Her breakthrough as Mattie Ross in the Coen brothers’ True Grit (2010) showed her poise with distinctive speech. The lead in The Edge of Seventeen (2016) made room for the more awkward feelings of an adolescent outsider. By the time she was playing Emily Dickinson in Dickinson (2019–2021), she had also begun voicing Gwen in the Spider-Verse films.
Across the Spider-Verse is directed by Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson and Joaquim Dos Santos, and its treatment of Gwen is unusually generous. The prologue gives her the strongest writing in either of the first two Spider-Verse films, while the colour does emotional work that another film might leave to dialogue. We should not mistake all that care for something an actor achieves alone. Nor should affection for Gwen excuse a film that takes too long explaining its rules and supplies only half a story.
In Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (2025), the limitation is simpler: Mary has less to do. Steinfeld does it sharply, and the smaller part is no reason to overlook her contribution. But this is a film we recommend chiefly for its opening hour of music, not as the fullest account of her abilities. Another collaboration with Coogler would be welcome, provided he gives her a larger part.
Biography
Hailee Steinfeld is an American actress. She was born on 11 December 1996 in Tarzana, Los Angeles, California. She began acting as a child and made her feature film debut as Mattie Ross in True Grit (2010), for which she received Academy Award and BAFTA Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress.
Steinfeld has appeared in Ender's Game (2013), Begin Again (2013), Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) and Pitch Perfect 3 (2017), The Edge of Seventeen (2016) and Bumblebee (2018). She voiced Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), and Mary in Sinners (2025). She has voiced Vi in the series Arcane (2021–2024) and portrayed Kate Bishop in the Marvel Cinematic Universe from 2021. She also played Emily Dickinson in the series Dickinson (2019–2021).
