In 2013, she began a recurring role as Tess in the ABC Family series Ravenswood. She has appeared as a guest on Disney Channel's Shake It Up and was a co-star in ABC's pilot production Adopted. She played Julina in the Lifetime original movie Escape from Polygamy, alongside Jack Falahee. In 2016, she had a recurring role as Ellie in the Freeform drama series Recovery Road. Her early film career included a leading role in The Last Survivors as well as a supporting performance in The Edge of Seventeen in 2016, and later starred in the psychological horror Split.
Her breakthrough came in 2017 when she starred as the lead Casey in Columbus. For her work in the film, she was nominated for the 2017 Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Actress. Reviewing Columbus in The New Yorker, critic Richard Brody wrote praise of her performance, "Richardson in particular vaults to the forefront of her generation’s actors with this performance, which virtually sings with emotional and intellectual acuity." Richardson will star in the romantic drama Five Feet Apart as the female lead opposite Cole Sprouse, set to be released on March 15, 2019. She plays a cystic fibrosis patient who falls in love with a boy (played by Sprouse) with the same disease.
Richardson founded Hooked by Haley Lu in 2009, a line of crocheted clothing and accessories that she designs and creates.
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