After nailing her performance as Mattie Ross in the Coen Brothers’ 2010 remake of True Grit, Hailee Steinfeld’s breakout status seemed like a no-brainer. Even though it’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen her, she’s got a lengthy slate of high-profile films coming out over the next year – a list so lengthy and so disparate that Steinfeld tackling similar roles would be fairly implausible. But she’ll soon be back in theaters seeking assistance in vengeance, albeit in an entirely different manner.
Deadline reports Steinfeld has joined the cast of Phillip Noyce’s next thriller, For the Dogs, which is based on the 2007 novel by author Kevin Wignall. She’ll be joining Sam Worthington, who signed on for the film in January.
In For the Dogs, the young actress will play a teen orphaned after her parents were murdered. She seeks the assistance of an assassin (Worthington) to avenge their deaths, and while the lone assassin is looking for peace and an exit from the tension-filled lifestyle, the girl’s bloodthirst develops, complicating matters quite a bit. Had she turned into a vampire in the middle of True Grit, perhaps I’d be drawing more comparisons.
Steinfeld’s biggest upcoming role will be in Gavin Hood’s highly anticipated Ender’s Game adaptation, but she’ll also soon be seen playing Juliet opposite Douglas Booth’s Romeo in Carlo Carlei’s adaptation of The Bard's most famous romance. She will also be seen playing Mark Ruffalo’s daughter in John Carney’s musical Can a Song Save Your Life?. She also has McG’s thriller Three Days to Kill and Tommy Lee Jones’ The Homesman down the line, and she’ll get to be the assassin in Kyle Newman’s comedy Barely Lethal. Doesn’t seem like she’ll be trying to get vengeance for her busy career any time soon.
The new thriller film is rewritten by Oren Moverman, who was working from a draft originally scripted by Paul Leyden (who, incidentally, paid for the novel’s rights out of his own pocket). The film will be shopped around at the Cannes Film Festival.
