Steinfeld: 'True Grit accent tough to tackle'

Hailee Steinfeld has explained that it took a lot of practice to capture her True Grit character's Arkansas accent.

In an interview with Good Day LA, the 14-year-old LA native admitted that she initially struggled to capture unruly orphan Mattie Ross's distinctive speaking style.

"That was definitely something I had to work on," she said.

Steinfeld further revealed that she had to enlist the help of a dialect coach in order to perfect the southern twang.

"I worked with a coach on the material and he was originally from West Texas so he was really familiar with the dialect and accent. But my main thing was going through and figuring out what everything meant," she added.

The star was recently nominated for a SAG Award for her performance in Joel and Ethan Coen's film adaptation of Charles Portis's acclaimed 1968 novel.

True Grit is now playing in US cinemas and is released on February 11 in the UK.