Hailee Steinfeld shed all of her "teenage angst" while filming The Edge Of Seventeen.

The 19-year-old actress turns 20 on 11 December (16) and hopes to take on more grown-up parts with this coming of age. So when she was approached to play high school student Nadine in The Edge of Seventeen, who is jealous of her friend dating her brother, Hailee admits she initially refused the job - until she read the script.

"I was pleasantly surprised. I realized it doesn't get more complex than this story and this character," she told Elle magazine.

"I really do feel like without this role I would not have had the opportunity to take that step from being a teenager to a young woman. It gave me the opportunity to discover so much about myself. It gave me the feeling of graduating from being that person and letting all of that built-up teen angst and emotion and bitterness and excitement and happiness and nervousness and everything go. I put all those emotions into one person and one moment."

Hailee herself was home-schooled and, like her alter ego Nadine, was somewhat of an outsider, especially when it came to graduating. Rather than joining fellow graduates for a joint celebration, the brunette beauty was determined to avoid it and finish her education alone.

"I don't like social gatherings like that, so I begged my parents and my teacher to let me skip out on it," she recalled, though confessed she wouldn't have minded having a photo taken. "The whole cap and gown thing stresses me out. I was not about it."

The Edge of Seventeen, also starring Woody Harrelson and Blake Jenner, hits cinemas from Friday (18Nov16).