Who plays kate in hawkeye

Hailee Steinfeld opened up about her new role as Kate Bishop in Marvel’s Hawkeye, which debuts on Disney+ this week.

Hawkeye will be released on Disney+, on November 24, 2021.

Credits: Getty Images,Just Jared,Variety,Andy Cohen SiriusXM Show

Hawkeye is here, which means the Marvel Cinematic Universe is finally introducing Kate Bishop. Ever since Kate first appeared in the Marvel comics back in 2005, fans have been hoping to see her come to life onscreen. And now she’s coming to the scene thanks to her new series on Disney+, Hawkeye!

Fans of Kate were especially excited to see Hailee Steinfeld, who has long been the front-runner in dream casts, take up the mantle as the iconic hero. But if you don’t know much about Kate, you might be wondering what her whole deal is and how she connects to the Marvel-verse.

Here’s everything you need to know about Kate Bishop from Marvel’s Hawkeye.

Who *is* Kate Bishop in Hawkeye?

Kate Bishop is a 22-year-old college student who is studying under an archery scholarship. She’s a championship archer, martial artist, and gymnast, and her skills allow her to hold her own in tough battles.

Since she was younger, Kate looked up to the superhero Hawkeye (played by Jeremy Renner in the MCU), especially after seeing him fight in the Battle of New York. After she lost her father during the battle, she was inspired to learn what she could to survive against possible catastrophes in the future.

Kate grew up super rich thanks to her mother’s security business. She is expected to take over the biz one day.

Marvel Studios

Who is Kate Bishop in the Marvel comics?

Kate Bishop is first introduced in Younger Avengers Vol 1 #1, which was released in 2005. She meets the Young Avengers team for the first time during her sister’s wedding when a fire broke out and hundreds of guests needed to be saved. Along with Cassie Lang (the daughter of Ant-Man), Kate was able to track down the Young Avengers and join them.

She eventually becomes one of the cocaptains of the team and, after discovering that Hawkeye is gone, becomes the new Hawkeye. Later, she meets Clint Barton after he is resurrected, and he makes it official by giving her his bow.

Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop in Hawkeye.

In the Marvel comics as in the Disney+ show, Kate is the privileged child of Manhattanite one-percent-ers. After witnessing the Avengers intervene in a criminal case involving her family—the details aren't worth rehashing here, trust me—she fixates on Hawkeye, whose talent, despite his lack of superhuman abilities, she admires. But she doesn’t begin training as an archer until she's horrifically assaulted in Central Park, an incident that understandably traumatizes her but motivates her to learn self-defense. She becomes so proficient in combat that she catches the attention of the Young Avengers, a self-explanatory team of power-imbued teenagers who eventually invite her to join their team.

Steinfeld had never picked up a bow and arrow until she started training for Hawkeye, the actress told ELLE.com. “I watched a ton of videos of Olympic archers and beginner archers,” she says. “By the time I got to the archery range for the first time, I had this idea in my head of what to do. And I might have practiced in the mirror. [Kate]’s all self-taught. The minute I started training, I was like, ‘If she could do it, if she could accomplish all of this by doing it herself, then I have to.’”

As is typical in comics, things go a little off the rails once Kate proves she’s worthy of a position as a junior Avenger. After Clint Barton's apparent death, Kate takes on the Hawkeye mantle to honor him, but when he's resurrected, he discovers a more-than-capable Kate filling his shoes. Convinced he's no longer needed in his old role, he dons the cape and boots of sword-wielding Ronin while Kate retains the Hawkeye moniker. Eventually, Clint's convinced to scoop his bow back up again, and they become a team of dual Hawkeyes, fighting the so-called “Tracksuit Mafia” in Brooklyn as Clint spirals from a number of poor life decisions. They soon establish a sibling-like rapport, Clint frustrated by Kate's sass and Kate equally irked by Clint's immaturity. Somehow, the balance they strike is sublime.

The Kate we meet in the MCU's Hawkeye has a somewhat similar origin story: Rescued by Clint in 2012 and jaded by her family's glitzy surroundings, she trains as an archer and inadvertently stumbles into heroics. But what matters most about Steinfeld's Kate is not how she came about the purple supersuit—it's whether she has the personality to carry a team.

In the comics, Kate is a fixture of the Young Avengers, a team composed of fellow heroes Billy Kaplan (Wiccan), Tommy Shepherd (Speed), Teddy Altman (Hulkling), America Chavez (Miss America), Cassie Lang (Stature), Eli Bradley (Patriot), and a number of others over the years. If you're not a comics reader but still recognize a few of those names, it's because they've already appeared—or are set to appear—in the MCU. Billy and Tommy show up as Wanda and Vision's twin boys in WandaVision. Cassie Lang is Scott Lang's now-teenaged daughter in Ant-Man and Avengers: Endgame. Eli Bradley makes a couple cameos in Falcon and The Winter Soldier. America Chavez is set to show up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It'd be laughable to suggest Marvel isn't attempting to build a Young Avengers for the screen.

But who will lead them? Kate seems the obvious choice. The character has enjoyed an enormous following, even pre-Disney+: “It was actually wild, everything that I was seeing online,” Steinfeld says of the fan devotion. “The minute I started to dig into a little Kate Bishop research, I instantly could understand why people have been very excited to see this character on the big screen for a while.”

But Steinfeld’s Kate is also a signal of Marvel returning to its roots. In Hawkeye, she's grounded but cheeky, a “normal” person thrust into extraordinary circumstances. She's not a witch or wizard, nor has she been poisoned by any radioactive ooze. She has no knowledge of alternate dimensions or aliens. She, like Clint, is a human with an unusual skill set. The MCU launched with a character like this: Tony Stark was smart, but he had no superpowers. He could die—he did die. Kate, as Clint's protege, has a similar vulnerability behind her stubbornness and wit, and Steinfeld can deliver this combination more convincingly than many actresses her age. If she's given the screen time and a script worthy of it, she could take the Young Avengers—a very larger-than-life ensemble featuring a cocktail of bizarre superpowers—and make them feel as relatable as they did in the comics. Such a change would be a delight in an MCU plagued by explosive (and, yet, increasingly uninteresting) storylines.

Plus, it's clear Steinfeld wants the job. When asked if she’d consider returning to the role for a Young Avengers suit-up, she told us, “I mean, would I be interested?” A laugh. “It's not even a question.”

Lauren Puckett-PopeAssociate Editor

Lauren Puckett-Pope is an associate editor at ELLE, where she covers news and culture.