Hailee Steinfeld says she misses making music videos, even as she and Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen are busy being new parents to a baby girl. In the Wednesday, April 15 edition of her Beau Society newsletter, Steinfeld wrote, “Boy, do I miss making music videos!”
She called music videos “these perfect mini movies that combine my two passions: music and film,” adding, “As an artist, I care deeply about every aspect of telling a story.” That view fits the way she has long talked about her work: not as a side project, but as something tied to craft, performance and control.
Steinfeld has not released a new EP since Half Written Story came out in 2020, and in February she said she had no plans to make music at that exact moment, though she thought about it “all the time.” In the newsletter, she said the music industry has changed a lot over the last few years and that she does not feel as creatively fulfilled by music as she once did. Still, she said music has always been a huge part of her life and that getting back into a studio would be an easy yes if it made sense.
The friction in her remarks is clear. She remembers the old grind of music video shoots — expensive, chaotic productions with six outfit changes in a tiny trailer parked in the middle of nowhere — and she remembers being told by label executives that no one cared about music videos anymore. Steinfeld pushed back on that idea, writing that there is always budget and that many people still care, then added, “I love the way Charli XCX writes about this.”
For Steinfeld, the comments read like the voice of an artist taking stock while life looks very different at home. Known first as an award-winning actress and also as a pop singer, she is now speaking about music from the middle of new parenthood with Allen, and her answer to whether music is finished is not no. It is that she is waiting for the right reason to make it matter again.
