Hailee Steinfeld, EDM Poet, to Play Emily Dickinson, Actual Poet

I would like to remind you that Hailee Steinfeld is a good actress. An Oscar-nominated actress in fact! And yet for the past few years, aside from a role here and there in the Pitch Perfect franchise and the charming Edge of Seventeen, Steinfeld has confusingly pivoted to singing thinly veiled pop songs about masturbating and guest verses on EDM songs. So I’m more than happy to hear she’ll be doing more, you know, actual acting, this time as Emily Dickinson.

Variety reports that Apple (ugh, yes, another streaming series we’ll have to worry about) has ordered a full-series about the notoriously reclusive poet, with Steinfeld to star. It’s reportedly a comedy “exploring the constraints of society, gender, and family from the perspective of a budding writer who doesn’t fit in to her own time through her imaginative point of view.” The show’s premiere (or, drop?) is TBD, but in the meantime I’ll remind you that Cynthia Nixon’s cranky and witty portrayal of the poet in A Quiet Passion is very much worth your time as well.

Perhaps Steinfeld’s work as a musician, an EDM poet of sorts, will inspire her as she taps into the role of Dickinson? “I didn’t know that I was starving till I tasted you, don’t need no butterflies when you give me the whole damn zoo” seems like something Dickinson would pen, no?