When Stranger Things ended, Maya Hawke said she was simply afraid of what would come next. But it is already clear: this concern was completely unfounded. Her magnificent fourth album, Maitreya Corso, out May 1st, is a real leap forward – an idiosyncratic, organic-sounding, melodically never-ending collection of pop in the spirit of Aimee Mann. She also stars alongside Lewis Pullman in the highly conceptual romantic comedy “Wishful Thinking,” which just premiered at SXSW to critical acclaim. And she’s already gotten into a new franchise: Next year she is filming “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.”
Sitting down in the Rolling Stone studio live at SXSW, Hawke opened up about it all—ambition, creative insecurity, Taylor Swift’s influence, and the voice in her head that’s never satisfied. Below are the most important excerpts; The full interview can be played above or on the ROLLING STONE YouTube channel.
The album title comes from two very different sources – the beat poet Gregory Corso and the Buddhist concept of Maitreya. “This is the first time I’ve ever spoken to anyone about this album, and I probably should have thought about what I was saying beforehand,” she says. “But I come from many different worlds and traditions of thought. Corso is a reference to Gregory Corso, Maitreya is a reference to the bodhisattva – this idea of new beginnings, this connection of divine and human spirit. I was looking for the name of a fantasy heroine for the journey that the album was for me – and that felt right.”
Taylor Swift as inspiration
Hawke doesn’t hesitate for a moment to cite Taylor Swift as an influence. “I think she shaped a whole generation. She made young people listen to music and think, ‘Wow, my life could matter. My feelings could matter. The details of this could matter.’ Of course, this is also a Blakean principle – the more concrete you make something, the more universal it becomes. But she influenced me enormously. I’ve been listening to their music my whole life. You could start any song with any word and I would know immediately where we are and probably finish it.”
In the new song “Lioness,” Hawke sings about watching “Sadie talk to God through the lavalier mic” – and confirms that the song is about her colleague Sadie Sink. “I actually wrote about working on Stranger Things,” she reveals. “There was a day when I was in a really bad mood and didn’t feel inspired by anything. I came on set as an extra in a scene she was in – and I remembered how magical acting is. I just watched as she grabbed a spirit from the universe, silenced the entire room, spoke the truth, and turned a game of pretend into something deeply real.
That was a kick in my ass – bring it every time, every second. Don’t become complacent for a second. At drama school I always complained – 80 percent of the day is magic, but 20 percent is complete nonsense. And then I started working and thought: Wow, 80-20 is actually a high percentage of magic. And that was a moment when I realized: You are shrinking the relationship. You lose touch with magic. It’s not art that’s depressed. It’s you. I believe she is the greatest actress of our generation.”
Hawke got Sink’s permission before writing her name on the song – and says she sometimes asks for permission even when she doesn’t mention anyone by name. “It’s a strange feeling when someone writes about you,” she says. “I’ve experienced this myself, with people I love who didn’t call me by name but wrote about me. It can feel exposing and vulnerable. And also – Miley Cyrus once said this – feelings come into your body, but they’re not you.
To write a good song, sometimes you want to hit a single feeling exactly. And that’s just a moment. When you write a really angry song about someone you love, you want to say, ‘Hey, just so you know – I’m not mad at you. I was mad at you on a day that really inspired me and that’s where this thing came from. Are you okay with me sharing this with the world?’”
The gremlin of ambition
The first single, “The Devil You Know,” is about the “gremlin” of ambition and a wake-up call that Hawke got when someone asked when success would ever be “enough.” “The only time it would feel like enough would be if it was too much,” she says. “If it started to curtail my freedom, to be anonymous. And I don’t want that. The only thing that would satisfy the gremlin in me would be the ruin of my freedom. So I have to talk to the gremlin and find a way to make a deal. That’s the devil in the song. The gremlin that says: more. You have to get better. This person is more successful than you. You have to talk to the guy and say, ‘Okay, how can we do this?’ This jealousy doesn’t help me. It doesn’t make me a better artist.”
Hawke started out as a lyricist and was initially afraid to approach the musical part of songwriting – partly because she was intimidated by the extraordinary musicians around her. “I just thought I was no good,” she says. “And that’s where great luck meets its own pitfalls. If I hadn’t met these people, I probably would have recorded demos in my room and put them on YouTube. But that wasn’t the hand I was dealt. I was dealt a hand that said, ‘Hey, come over, I’ve got the best guitarist in the world here who wants to write a song with you.’ That’s a pretty intimidating environment to say, ‘But maybe how about this?’ It took a while and a lot of encouragement for me to think my idea was worth it – not because it was better, but because it was mine.”
Hawke says “Wishful Thinking” — in which a couple’s ups and downs have magical effects on the world around them — appealed to her love of high-concept films. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve typed ‘movies like The Truman Show’ into Google,” she says. “I’ve seen them all and I want there to be more of them. And the message: What you feel on the inside radiates on the outside. I don’t know how much you can be unhappy and angry and still make the world better for other people. You have to get your own internal landscape in order first.”
“Hunger Games” as a matter of the heart
The decision to take part in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping was easy for Hawke. “‘Hunger Games’ is a no-brainer. I want to be part of anti-fascist folk art.”
Hawke hadn’t seen Amanda Plummer’s portrayal of the older version of her “Hunger Games” character Wiress in years, but remembered every moment – and was shocked to learn it was only seven minutes of screen time. “There are no small roles, just small actors – another platitude – but she set the bar so incredibly high,” says Hawke. “I was deeply intimidated and thought about it a lot throughout the whole process. My character exists at a point in time before what Wiress puts her in the position and state that Amanda shows her in. So it’s a question of: Where did these characters start?”
The ending of Stranger Things hit Hawke hard. She describes the last two years as a “year full of funerals.” “I was so scared,” she says. “I had finally found my rhythm and shaken off the newbie feeling – right at the moment it was ending. And then came a year of funerals – private and public. ‘This is the last time on Stranger Things.’ It was really sad and scary and confusing. I’m feeling better now. We’re all still friends and that’s reassuring. I have continued working since then and that gives me comfort. I’ll keep you posted.”
Conformity gate and the pain of parting
Some fans refused to believe that the finale was truly the end of the series – giving rise to the so-called Conformity Gate conspiracy theory. Hawke can understand that. “I’m not making fun of it at all,” she says. “Yes. I’ve gone through the stages of grief. I’m still going through them. And I think I’m close to acceptance – but if the phone rang tomorrow and someone said, ‘Hey, do you want to come back?’ I would say: ‘Yes, very much.'”
Hawke said she understood fans’ frustration that Robin didn’t get a final scene with her friend Vickie (Amybeth McNulty) – but was grateful to the Duffer brothers for what they gave the cast instead. “I loved that storyline this season,” she says. “I loved working with Amybeth. And I thought she was great and so funny, and I love that Robin got to have a relationship. And I really would have liked to have had a final scene with the people I had spent the most time with, and I understand why that bothered people. Completely. But what I’m grateful to the Duffers for – and I’ve never been able to talk about this before – is that they gave us the opportunity to experience our last scene on the show as the last scene we did as actors.
The speech Gaten gives at graduation about how they lost their childhood – I don’t know if the Duffers did it that way on purpose. But the way the series allowed the cast’s experiences to be reflected in the characters’ stories meant the world to me. I wasn’t angry about anything. If the catharsis didn’t feel right for others – I’m sorry. But to me it meant everything.”
