Hailee Steinfeld’s favourite movie about the music industry: “I really, really loved that”
While there have been plenty of movies over the years about the movie-making industry, with Hollywood releasing self-regarding industry flicks (including the vastly overrated La La Land) on an almost annual basis, there haven’t been quite so many about an equally glitzy business – namely that of successfully making music. Actress and singer Hailee Steinfeld is someone who knows plenty about both industries and the glamour that can come with them – she was even born in Los Angeles – and has bagged not just MTV awards for music but Academy Awards and Golden Globe nominations for her acting.
Steinfeld was, in fact, one of the youngest ever actors to be nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar when she appeared alongside Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon in the Coen Brothers-directed western True Grit and went on to star alongside Hollywood royalty in the shape of Paul Giamatti in 2013’s Romeo and Juliet and Harrison Ford in Ender’s Game. She then took some time to focus on music, releasing five platinum-selling singles before landing a major lead role in the 2018 Transformers spin-off Bumblebee.
So whether it’s the movie business or the music business, few people know their onions quite as well as the 28-year-old. When asked by Rolling Stone which of her picks of the ‘films about the music industry’ would be, she went with Straight Outta Compton, the 2015 rap biopic about legendary hip-hop group NWA, who went from drug dealing on the streets to global superstars in the space of just two years.
Says Steinfeld: “I saw Straight Outta Compton and absolutely loved it. I was not familiar with the background of those people and those artists and how what they do came to be. I mean, I obviously knew what it was going to be about, but didn’t know it was going to be that in-depth. I really didn’t have any expectations walking in, because I wasn’t aware of how powerful it was, but I really, really loved that movie.”
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the film which was a huge hit with audiences and critics alike. It bagged an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay and brought in over $200million at the box office against a budget of ten times less.
Starring founding N.W.A member of Ice Cube’s son, O’Shea Jackson Jr, and The Walking Dead’s Corey Hawkins, Straight Outta Compton didn’t shy away from showing the gritty reality of the group’s origins set against the fiery backdrop of the 1991 Los Angeles riots.
It also documents the sad decline of another of NWA’s founding members, Eazy-E as he battles AIDS and eventually succumbs to the killer disease. Filming in LA was beset with issues, from a drive-by shooting to a controversial casting call for women that was accused of racism and sexism. There was even an argument on set involving former Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight that resulted in his car hitting a friend of Ice Cube’s, Terry Carter, killing him. Knight was sent to jail for 28 years.
Steinfeld meanwhile has this year been seen in the supernatural smash Sinners alongside Michael B. Jordan and will soon be going back to the world of superheroes, lending her voice to the upcoming Spiderman: Beyond the Spiderverse and Marvel Zombies.
