Hailee Steinfeld Is Thankful ‘Sinners’ Helped Her Unpack Her Multi-Racial Roots: ‘I Wish It Had Happened Sooner’

Hailee Steinfeld thanked “Sinners” director Ryan Coogler for giving her the opportunity to connect with her Black roots and learn more about her family’s history.

The ‘True Grit’ actress’ maternal grandfather is half-Black and half-Filipino. Steinfeld said that making discoveries about her own family history informed her performance as Mary, a multi-racial woman in Coogler’s 1930s vampire thriller. 

When asked about how her relationship with being white-passing has changed since filming “Sinners,” Steinfeld told Sirius XM host Mike Muse that it “left me with more questions than it did answers.”

“I’m forever grateful to Ryan [Coogler] for trusting me with this, for giving me the opportunity to use this as a way to get closer to my family history,” she said. “I truly believe that this came into my life in a time where I didn’t know I needed it. I wish it had happened sooner, looking back on it now, but I’m grateful that we’re here.”

Watch the exchange here:

The “Edge of Seventeen” actress said preparing for her role set in the Jim Crow-era South allowed her to have intimate conversations with her family, especially about her late grandfather. 

“I had the most amazing conversations with my mom about my grandfather, who’s half-Black, and my God, what he may have or may not have gone through, what his parents may or may not have had to go through,” she said. 

“Sinners” is an American supernatural horror film that follows Michael B. Jordan, playing identical twins. Set in the 1930s American South, Smoke and Stack (Jordan) return to their hometown seeking a fresh start but are confronted by a greater evil: the Ku Klux Klan. 

The film, directed, written and produced by Coogler, also stars Miles Caton, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller and Delroy Lindo.

“Sinners” will be released in theaters April 18.

The post Hailee Steinfeld Is Thankful ‘Sinners’ Helped Her Unpack Her Multi-Racial Roots: ‘I Wish It Had Happened Sooner’ appeared first on TheWrap.