Pitch Perfect 2 Adds Hailee Steinfeld

When you earn yourself an Oscar nomination at the age of fourteen, the career opportunities tend to stack up. Such was the case for Hailee Steinfeld, who was nominated for True Grit in 2011, and has since continued to emerge as one of Hollywood's more promising young actors. She'll now add Pitch Perfect 2 to her list of upcoming projects. Steinfeld joins returning stars Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow and others in the a cappella-focused comedy.

Beyond the cast, which is still taking shape, details on Pitch Perfect 2 remain slim, and Steinfeld's casting is no exception there. Variety reports that Steinfeld is set to join the cast of the sequel, but they offer no specifics on her character, nor the plot of the film. Last we heard, the plot of the movie might involve Beca (Anna Kendrick) and Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) preparing to graduate from college, but Universal hasn't offered any confirmation on the intended plot of the film.

We do know that Elizabeth Banks, who produced last time around, is returning to produce and also to direct Pitch Perfect 2 from a script written by Kay Cannon. And the movie is confirmed to arrive May 15, 2015.

We know Steinfeld can act. In addition to scoring an Oscar nomination for True Grit, she showed off her talent as an actor in films like Ender's Game and Romeo & Juliet. And we'll see her in upcoming films Term Life, Barely Lethal and some other projects. But can she sing? It doesn't look like her musical talents have been demonstrated yet, but if we're digging for musical connections, we might note that Steinfeld is friends with singer Taylor Swift, and she appeared in The Cab's music video for "Endlessly."...

That's not much to go on in terms of her vocal abilities, but we don't even know if Hailee Steinfeld's role involves singing, so we can only speculate. And while she can certainly pass for college age at this point, at seventeen, she's technically barely old enough to be a Bella.

Beyond the speculation over who she might be playing and whether or not Steinfeld will sing, it's exciting to hear word of some new casting for Pitch Perfect 2. Prior to this news, the focus of the casting news has been on returning players, some of whole have yet to be confirmed. While we know Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow will be back, and that Hana Mae Lee, Ester Dean, Kelley Jakle and Alexis Knapp are expected to return, but we're still waiting to hear confirmation on Anna Camp. As for the male characters, it sounds like Skylar Astin is going to return, but we haven't heard much about the other guys. So we'll have to wait and see whether or not any of the other guys from Pitch Perfect are set to return, or if the sequel is planning on casting a new set of male voices.

Kelly West
Assistant Managing Editor

Kelly joined CinemaBlend as a freelance TV news writer in 2006 and went on to serve as the site’s TV Editor before moving over to other roles on the site. At present, she’s an Assistant Managing Editor who spends much of her time brainstorming and editing feature content on the site. She an expert in all things Harry Potter, books from a variety of genres (sci-fi, mystery, horror, YA, drama, romance -- anything with a great story and interesting characters.), watching Big Brother, frequently rewatching The Office, listening to Taylor Swift, and playing The Sims.