Hailee Steinfeld talks exclusively to RadioTimes.com about voicing Gwen Stacy and why the Spider-Verse saga is so successful.
Gwen Stacy, AKA Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld), returns for the next chapter of the Academy Award-winning Spider-Verse saga in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
After stopping an attack in her home dimension (Earth-65), Gwen is recruited into the Spider Society, a group of Spider-People that investigate anomalies across the multiverse. She is reunited with Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as the pair go on a life-altering journey together.
Steinfeld’s Gwen was introduced in the critically-acclaimed 2018 film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as the tough yet caring friend of Miles from a different dimension.
The sequel delves deeper into Gwen’s story and background as it highlights the challenges she faces concealing her identity from her police captain father and trying to balance life as a high school student and a web-slinging vigilante, just like Miles.
Talking about the prospect of exploring more of her character, Steinfeld told RadioTimes.com: “It’s very exciting, it’s so fun! When I found out, just as a fan of the character myself, I was very excited.
“And to dig a little deeper into her world… It’s a space that I would live in forever, it is so beautiful and what they’ve done with it is amazing. We get a little bit more of Gwen this time around, which is fun.”
!["Hailee]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2023/05/GettyImages-1492564369-19b6a78.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413" "\"Hailee")
Superhero movies are a dominant force in the modern film industry with Marvel breaking box office records and receiving huge acclaim for titles such as Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Steinfeld herself is part of the MCU as she led Disney Plus series Hawkeye as Kate Bishop, the vigilante partner of Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye.
However, despite being a superhero movie, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is an outlier as it returns to the comic book origins of animation, with each parallel world having a strikingly different artistry and environment.
Steinfeld said: “Part of the reason it works so well is because it’s different. It’s really different from anything I’ve ever seen or been a part of. I think that’s been a huge reason why the audience has responded to it, because it feels like something different.
“The messaging in this goes so far and so wide and the characters do as well. There’s so much to take away from a film like this and it goes above and beyond how visually stunning it is.”
Read more:
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse review: No live-action superhero movie comes near it
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse star wants MCU role: “I am Miles Morales”
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse soundtrack – The songs in the sequel
Meanwhile, Shameik Moore, who plays protagonist Miles Morales in the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse cast, explained what it was like watching the final cut for the first time and seeing the art come to life.
He told us: “I didn’t know a lot of the things that were going on in this film. When I saw it I was just as surprised as you guys were the first time seeing it!”
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is in cinemas now. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on.
Take part in the Screen Test, a project from Radio Times and the Universities of Sussex and Brighton, to explore the role of television and audio in our lives.
Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only £1 with delivery to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.