14-year-old actress shows 'True Grit'

It's not child's play, stealing scenes from Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin.

But in "True Grit," 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld not only holds her own against those seasoned performers, but establishes herself as one of a few pint-sized actors who this year gave Oscar-worthy performances.

In the Coen brothers' new screen adaptation of Charles Portis' picaresque novel from 1968, Steinfeld is a force to be reckoned with. She has the plum role of Mattie Ross, a pigtailed angel of vengeance bent on finding and killing the no-good felon who gunned down her father and made off with his horse and money.

With an unshakable faith in her Protestant ethic and her own righteousness, Mattie gets to work hiring trigger-happy, one-eyed U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Bridges, reprising the role played by John Wayne in the original 1969 film) and striking a deal with an egocentric Texas Ranger (Damon). The steely-eyed girl buffaloes a horse trader, packs her papa's pistol, fords a river and treks through the Indian territory of the 1870s.

"What attracted me to Mattie was the description of the character in the book," Steinfeld said. "She has such a drive. That's really how I related to her. She has this goal, and she's not going to sleep at night until she reaches it."

Hailee declared to her parents at 8 that she was going to be in movies and television.

"My cousin was doing commercials at the time, and to watch TV and see my cousin come up was huge for me. It made it seem possible that I could do it, too," she said.

"Before I could go out for even one audition, my mom made me study acting for a full year," she said. "She wanted to make sure I'd stay with it."

Steinfeld immediately was cast in several short films, a couple of TV appearances -- enough to get a handle on research and getting in touch with her emotions.

But the role of Mattie almost got away from her. She auditioned late in the process.

Luckily for Steinfeld, filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen hadn't yet found the right young actress despite reportedly considering nearly 15,000 candidates.

To prepare for her audition, Steinfeld spent a weekend reading the novel and watching the John Wayne movie -- for the first time. That gave her an idea of the idiosyncratic language Portis put in his characters' mouths, a bracing blend of florid oration and clipped American vernacular.

Her work blew away the Coens.

"It was apparent from the very beginning that Hailee was going to have no problem with the language," Joel Coen told the New York Times. "We only cast her three or four weeks before we started shooting the movie, and we had been looking for a long time. But that was a crucial -- maybe the crucial -- aspect of making the film."

Steinfeld auditioned on a Saturday. She learned she had landed the role on Tuesday. Within a month, she was riding a pony in New Mexico.

She didn't have time to be nervous.

"It's amazing how the hair, the makeup and the costumes can affect your performance," she said. "Sometimes it's like they're acting, and you're just going along. And the location, too -- being out in the middle of nowhere."