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Hawkeye’s Hailee Steinfeld went all-in on archery training, then Jeremy Renner explained it’s CGI
At least now she knows she can hunt her dinner if she ever needs to.
Hailee Steinfeld cut no corners when preparing for her role as Clint Barton's young protégée Kate Bishop in the upcoming Hawkeye series for Disney+. In fact, she even went so far as to learn the real-life skill of archery — even though Hawkeye himself let her know that being proficient with a bow and arrow isn’t exactly a requirement for the job. It is, after all, just make-believe.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, the Hawkeye co-star said she went all in on the archery training when the landed the gig, until series star Jeremy Renner reminded her that it’s mostly just CGI. "I wanted [the archery] to be second nature by the time I got out to Atlanta to shoot, but the first time we met, Jeremy was like, 'Listen, you're going to get there and you're not even shooting a real arrow, it's all CGI,'" Steinfeld told the media outlet. "But I was still grateful to have the mechanics down."
And her commitment to the role didn’t stop there. Steinfeld also opened up about how she used Matt Fraction and David Aja's acclaimed, 2012 Hawkeye comic as her primary source of research for the role. The comic series has Kate teaming up with Clint in a partnership that’s less Batman and Robin and more Falcon and Winter Soldier, as the duo get into all kinds of misadventures that don't quite rise to the level of an Avengers-level threat. "Diving into all the information out there on Kate Bishop felt like a dream," Steinfeld added.
Judging from the most recent teaser, the series focuses on Clint wanting to spend the holiday with his family, but unfortunately has people looking to kill him (to be fair, it’s strongly implied in Avengers: Endgame that he made a lot of deadly enemies after The Blip. To boost his chances of survival, Barton joins up with Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop, a young archer potentially in line to inherit the Hawkeye mantle if the comic trajectory holds true.
In addition to Steinfeld and Renner, Hawkweye also features Vera Farmiga (The Conjuring) as Kate's mom, Eleanor Bishop; Tony Dalton (Better Call Saul) as Jack Duquesne; Zahn McClarnon (Doctor Sleep) as William Lopez; and Alaqua Cox as William's daughter, Maya Lopez (aka Echo).
Overseen by head writer Jonathan Igla (Mad Men), Hawkeye is directed by Rhys Thomas and the directing duo known as Bert and Bertie.
The series premiers Wednesday, Nov. 24 on Disney+.
