Stephanie Steinbrenner

"I feel like I'm babysitting, except I'm not getting paid."

- Stef

Stephanie Steinbrenner, often shortened to Stef, is Andy's best friend. She lives in the Goon Docks of Astoria with her family.

Appearance
Stef is blonde and the second tallest Goonie behind Brand. She dons a pair of glasses and mismatched fishing lure-inspired earrings, and is often seen chewing gum and blowing bubbles from it. She wears a thin red scarf, a white shirt, and a red jacket, with a thin pink belt over the latter. She also has on a pair of thin, gray sweatpants. She wears red, canvas, high top, Nike ‘Almost Hi’ (1984) sneakers.

History
During the chase sequence between the Astoria police and the Fratellis, she was distracted from seeing it by having her head submerged in a tank of water, of which she pulls out a crab and tosses it behind her.

She later appears enjoying a ride in Troy's convertible along with Andy. When they pull up next to Brand, Stef seems to enjoy his misery, up until Troy starts dragging him along with his Mustang, at which she starts slapping at Troy, trying to get him to let go. After her best friend elbows Troy's lip, they go to find Brand, and end up discovering the Goonies as well, all huddled up in front of the Lighthouse Lounge.

Electing to stay outside while the boys go inside, she accidentally steps on a rake; a rotten fishhead attached to the handle flips up into their faces, scaring the daylights out of them both. They flee the scene into the Lounge, where Andy cozies up with Brand, granting the boys time to investigate in the basement. While waiting for them to finish playing around, she gets disgusted with her best friend for nearly kissing Brand, and then voices her annoyance with having to hang around the Goonies. She is the one to notice a newspaper clipping of the Fratellis, helping confirm them as criminals.

After the group (sans Chunk) escapes into the secret caves, her glasses immediately are lost and broken, with Mikey stepping on them. She helps bang on the pipes connected to the Astoria Country Club, and then helps Andy calm down after they come across Chester Copperpot's corpse.

Escaping from the first booby trap, she finds the treasure and waterfall they discover something fishy. When Mouth starts piecing through the coins, she discovers they're in a wishing well and tries to talk everyone out of taking the money, as they're somebody else's wishes and dreams. A second booby trap is set, which unveils another tunnel.

During a bathroom break, Stef is the only one to witness Andy kiss Mikey on accident. After pointing him out of the cave, she asks what Andy thinks and laughs when she mentions braces.

After braving more booby traps and the approaching Fratellis, Stef slides down a waterslide, coming out into a large lagoon where she and the other Goonies discover the Inferno, intact after all this time. On the ship, she gathers up as much treasure as she can, tarrying out numerous necklaces around her shoulders, of which she has to drop when the Fratellis catch them. After Andy is pushed overboard and Brand jumps to her rescue, she and Mouth are shuffled together to go next. However, in the nick of time, Chunk shows up with a new friend; Sloth swings down and rescues her and Mouth from the gangplank. She escapes over the edge of the boat anyways, but not before tricking Mama Fratelli and punching her in the face. She then flees the grotto with her friends.

Back out on Cannon Beach, she is reunited with her mother and father, and she and Mouth both make amends. After Rosalita discovers Mikey's marble bag full of precious gemstones and the Goon Docks are considered saved, she watches the Inferno sail off into the ocean with her friends.

Relationships
Stef is best friends with Andy, with her being "more on the ball than Andy". They make light bicker every now and then, as seen by their interaction while Mikey attempts to dig through the Lighthouse Lounge's basement, but are very close. Stef is the one to calm Andy down after discovering the remains of Chester Copperpot, and even indulges in the crushes she has, asking how her kiss is with (who was thought to be) Brand.

Her friendship with Mouth is a very "love/hate kind of thing. We don't get along unless we're in a life-and-death situation." They enjoy bantering with one another, but she will eventually grow tired of it, as when she yelled at him about his wisecrack about Martin Sheen being on a nickel. By the end of the movie, they reconcile a bit and have a genuine hug.

Behind the scenes
Stef was portrayed by Martha Plimpton, who was cast in "tomboyish" roles in film at the time. She describes Stef as "kind of a punk nerd" who looks up to Cyndi Lauper as fashion inspiration.

In drafts for the film, she is described as "short" and "pudgy", with "dark brown hair and a pair of fisherman's overalls". She had more of an involvement with solving the traps left by One-Eyed Willy in this version of the script, notably solving a puzzle involving finding the "funny bone" on a skeleton in order to open a secret passage to progress to the treasure.

She was a part of two deleted scenes: the Stop 'N Snack scene and the Octopus scene, with a heavy involvement in the latter, being attacked by an octopus in the lagoon that housed the Inferno.