In the last half decade, Haley Lu Richardson has amassed an impressive variety of roles, from slapstick comedies and indie dramas, united in their striking naturalism.
As the popular best friend to Hailee Steinfeld’s misanthrope in teen comedy Edge of Seventeen, a star-crossed lover with cystic fibrosis in Five Feet Apart and an architecture nerd who befriends a grieving older man in Kogonada’s critically acclaimed Columbus, the 27-year-old American actor’s warmth consistently elevates what could be flat or derivative characters into full-blooded people. She is remarkably good at the more casual, throwaway aspects of life that often translate poorly to screen – Googling Planned Parenthood in Unpregnant, shooting a glance in the memories of a techno-sapien robot in After Yang or, in the case of her new film Montana Story, calling an Uber to her father’s ranch in Big Sky country.
