Hailee Steinfeld Lands a Role in the Coen Brother’s True Grit

We already know that the Coen Brothers are following up A Serious Man with a remake of the 1969 John Wayne western True Grit. They’ve already cast Matt Damon, Jeff Bridges, and Josh Brolin in the film, but Joel and Ethan have also been looking for someone to play the female lead. Deadline Hollywood says that after auditioning more than 15,000 teenage girls, they eventually cast Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, the “14-year old spitfire” whose father is killed in cold blood. I haven’t ever seen Hailee Steinfeld before, but I can’t wait to see this, it just sounds like a potentially fantastic remake, especially in the hands of the Coens.

Determined to bring the killer to justice, Mattie enlists the help of hard-drinking U.S. Marshal “Rooster” Cogburn (Bridges) to track down the killer before a Texas Ranger (Damon) does. Scott Rudin is producing.

Initially they were planning to end up with an unknown first-time actress for the role, but then they came across Steinfeld, who has some acting experience from Heather: A Fairy Tale and She’s a Fox. The Charles Portis novel that this was originally based on is entirely in the voice of Mattie Ross, which is why she’s such an important character in this. When talking about this project last year, the Coens said that it would be “a lot tougher and more violent than the [original] movie” but also made it sound like they would still retain some of the humor from the book. Paramount has already set a December 25th, 2010 release for True Grit.

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