Haley Lu Richardson

HALEY LU RICHARDSON

Date of Birth: March 7, 1995

Haley Lu Richardson was a driven child. Raised in Phoenix, Arizona, she started doing gymnastics at a young age, then moved on to dance by the age of eight. She spent almost ten years as a competitive dancer, during which time she also played roles in community theater. By the time she was 16, she was so anxious to begin a professional career that she dropped out of high school and moved to Los Angeles. She earned her high school diploma online.

One of Haley's first onscreen gigs came in a music video for Mexican artist Kevin Ortiz, as well as a role as a dancer and choreographer on an episode of the TV series Up in Arms. She was cast as a principal dancer on the video game Just Dance: Disney Party and would work for Disney again in 2013, playing a dancer on a 2013 episode of the Disney Channel TV series Shake It Up!, which starred Bella Thorne and Zendaya. She managed to also land a couple of roles in which she didn't have to rely on her dance ability, in the TV movies Christmas Twister, Adopted and Escape from Polygamy.

In 2013 her career had a boost when she was cast in a recurring role in the Pretty Little Liars spinoff Ravenswood, playing Tess Hamilton.

In 2014, Haley starred in her first feature film, called The Last Survivors, and followed that up with a part in an episode of the series Mortal Kombat X: Generations.

In the Sundance hit The Bronze, Haley played an up-and-coming star gymnast who gets a former Olympic medal-winning gymnast (Melissa Rauch) as her coach.

In 2015, she went back to TV for an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and six episodes of Recovery Road in 2016.

Also in 2016, Haley was cast as Hailee Steinfeld's best friend in the high school-based comedy feature film The Edge of Seventeen. The movie, which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, also stars Blake Jenner, Woody Harrelson and Kyra Sedgwick. While working on the film, Haley was also shooting a role in M. Night Shyamalan's new thriller Split, which meant she had to fly back and forth from Vancouver to Philadelphia.

Haley is in a long-term relationship with actor Brett Dier, whom she met in 2013 when they both played roles on Ravenswood.

Filmography:

Split (2017)
The Edge of Seventeen (2016)
Follow (2015)
The Bronze (2015)
The Young Kieslowski (2014) The Last Survivors (2014)