interview by Lily Rabe
photography by Boe Marion
styling by Cece Liu
all clothing by Prada FW25
Maya Hawke’s breakout role on Stranger Things, as the frenetically precocious Robin Buckley, whose character arc would go on to challenge the entire dynamic of the Netflix tentpole, was instant proof of a rare, believable, and soulful complexity. That same year, a minor appearance as a Manson girl in Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019), firmly placed Hawke in a class of next gen actors demanding visibility on the silver screen in an industry that is not only rapidly evolving, but also in crisis. Aside from her well-known screenwork, she is also a musician and stage actor who has released three studio albums and recently starred in an Off-Broadway play. Her titular role in the revival of Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, a play about the inexorable riptide of grief, earned her widespread critical acclaim. On the occasion of her recent casting in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (2026) and the final season of Stranger Things, Hawke and fellow actor Lily Rabe discuss the fraught, vulnerable psychic landscape of the dramatic arts and the undeniable power and seduction of process. There’s no business like show business.
LILY RABE: Hi, Maya.
MAYA HAWKE: Hi, beautiful woman.
LILY RABE: Speaking of works in progress—for me, I don’t know what it is to be in any other state of being other than work in progress. I always get so freaked out when a director says that we’ve picture locked. It sends me into an existential panic.
MAYA HAWKE: I feel the same. I feel like I’m always in a state of process and progress and creation. Where I get the most nervous is when things freeze. That’s the nice thing about the theater, because even though you lock the show, it’s never not in process, it’s never not continuing to be worked on.
RABE Yes, you always have another show, and you get to do it all over again. And then it’s over, and no one gets to see it anymore. But with theater, you don’t experience that feeling of saying goodbye like you do with film, where this one take is going to be...
HAWKE ...Used forever! They don’t get to see the four other takes that I did that were cool and different.
RABE: With the theater, you can fail better (laughs).
HAWKE: Yes, you can fail more continuously. So, it feels like failing is, in and of itself, an honorable act because it’s an impermanent state where you’re always aspiring to not fail the next time. But when you’re in a permanent state of failure, by closing the door on something, that’s when I get really sick to my stomach.
RABE: Even in the play, Ghosts, that I just did with your brother [Levon Hawke]—when the director, Jack O’Brien told us we were officially frozen—both “frozen” and “locked” feel so traumatizing.
HAWKE: Yes! I don’t want to be frozen, and I don’t want to be locked.
RABE: Once it was frozen, Jack would go back to his house in the country. When he would occasionally come in on a Sunday matinée, all of us would just be so desperate for a note from him
HAWKE: It’s true because when you freeze a show, you’re still shaping it. And it moves in different directions all on its own, just from the nature of the chemicals of the people together. Something I remember being so nervous about was when Les [Waters], who directed Eurydice, came back to see it, and I couldn’t even remember if I was still doing what I was supposed to be doing. We froze, but I don't know if I froze or not.
RABE: We both grew up in artistic families. Do you feel like that’s the way every interview you do starts?
HAWKE: It’s interesting. I wonder if that’s been your experience or not. I feel like it’s a double-edged blade, right? Because it’s both true and interesting. When I talk to most people, eventually, I start to wonder about them: How did you end up like you, or what happened to make you—you? I always wonder about a person’s childhood and experiences, so, for me, it’s such a fair question. Do you get asked that question a lot?
RABE: Yes, all the time. But what you’re saying is true. When I read someone’s profile, it always starts with their childhood and where they grew up. It just feels sort of loaded for us, but it is our history. It sounds like you don’t have a chip on your shoulder about that question.
HAWKE: I think it depends on who asked the question; I can smell whether someone is asking for the wrong reasons or for the normal reasons. One big mistake people from similar backgrounds make is getting defensive about it, because it gets a little like “the lady doth protest too much.” It’s a completely appropriate question if it comes out of curiosity and education about another person. I was doing an interview recently where someone asked me this question, and I just started talking about my high school teachers and my acting teachers. Because, yes, I have an artistic family, and that’s the reason I was exposed to acting, but it’s the same for most people: your parents loom so large. Then, you go out and you find your guides, especially as a teenager. Eventually, you wind your way back to your parents, where you’re like, “Oh, you guys are okay.” These guides that pop into your life, in these formative years, point you towards who you are, and sometimes who you are is right back to where you started. I wouldn't be me if it weren’t for Laura Barnett and Nancy Reardon and Nancy Fells Garrett, but I obviously wouldn't be who I am without my mom and dad.
RABE: I’m interested in this because I took a slightly indirect path towards the thing I always knew I wanted to be doing, and part of that was because of exactly what we’re talking about. I had tremendously supportive, brilliant, incredible, and wonderful parents. But I was still like: I’m going to be a dancer. Then the second thing was writing, when really what I wanted to be doing was acting.
HAWKE: Well, in some ways, writing plus dance is acting. (laughs) I wanted to go deep into poetry, to go into academia, and study it. My different take on poetry was that it should be spoken out loud.
RABE: But it’s certainly not acting, don't you dare. (laughs)
HAWKE: Definitely not. (laughs) But I relate to trying to carve out your version of the same pie. It takes a little while to be like: All right, I’ll eat the pie. Being sure that you do love it, and this is the thing I’m the best at—the place I feel the safest and most whole in the universe—so I probably shouldn’t turn my back on that feeling just to prove I can. But I do feel like my experience watching people move through lives in the arts—both my parents and their friends—has been my secret weapon in life. It shapes everything—my emotional life, my work life, even therapy. Having the arts as your backbone is one of the most fortunate ways to move through life, because you have these tools on how to process emotions, how to look at conflict, how to look at the truth, through scene work and storytelling. I think it takes people a long time to go back and build that tool kit, versus if you’ve just been fortunate to walk out of your development with it. I couldn't be more grateful for that.
RABE: I think there’s a lot of truth in what you said. We’ve never really talked about this, but you’re the kind of person I’d call if I were afraid to share something with others for fear of judgment. But I’d call you, or your brother, because I’d know you wouldn’t be afraid of it. And I feel like you’d say the same about me. I wonder if that’s connected to what you just articulated so beautifully. It’s like we feel safer around the edges than maybe the average person does.
HAWKE: I think we understand the plasticity of emotion. Let’s say I’m having a horrible feeling, and I’m feeling somehow betrayed and angry, and as soon as I say those things out loud, something hard and carcinogenic loosens, then you have this opportunity to reshape it and be healed. That gives you so much emotional freedom and a sense of safety. To really understand that you are not defined by your feelings, you have to see how movable they actually are.
RABE: I know that your parents moved around a lot, but you were in New York primarily. Did your parents take you to the theater?
HAWKE: Well, not only did my parents take me to the theater, but my parents took me to see you in the theater. My favorite thing in the world as a kid was Shakespeare in the Park, and I saw you there twice; it shook me to my absolute core. I get asked all the time what movies made me become an actress. But really, the three things that made me want to be an actress were my dad doing The Winter’s Tale with Rebecca Hall, you in The Merchant of Venice, and you in As You Like It. Those three shows made me realize: that's the kind of woman I want to become, with that kind of strength and grace. I knew I wanted to go to Juilliard because I saw a version of being a grown woman that was right to me. I wanted to have mastery over language, over the space, and over the story that just made me want to do this. It was really because of seeing you.
RABE: I’m speechless. I love you. I can’t talk about this without talking about Eurydice. You and I never worked together—I was pulled into your orbit through your family. Right when Ghosts ended, which I had done with your brother Levon, you were cast in Eurydice. I haven’t really told this story, but I actually went to see you in it with your brother. I had seen the original production at that same theater, with the same director, even many of the same props, and music. I went with my mother, and we usually shared the same taste in theater—but this time, I was stumped. I thought it was beautiful, but I didn’t understand it. My mother said, “Maybe someday you will.” Years later, I returned. Sitting next to Levon, I watched you—someone I love—play this role, and I was overwhelmed. I cried so hard on your brother’s shoulder I couldn’t breathe or see; tears were shooting sideways out of my eyes. You were breathtaking—your command of the stage, your connection to your body, your language. You had this agelessness that was astonishing. I realized then that Eurydice might be the greatest play about grief ever written. And my mother was right: I finally understood it, because I had lost her. Experiencing that through you—this woman and artist I love—was profound beyond words. When we got backstage, I held onto you as if being passed from Levon’s arms into yours. You and Sarah Ruhl had given me the greatest gift anyone grieving could receive. It’s an experience I will carry forever.
HAWKE: It felt strange because, during rehearsals, Sarah often told me I reminded her of your mom. That made your reaction when you saw it even more meaningful to me. I almost felt like I felt as if Sarah wasn’t saying I reminded her of your mom, but that you would come to the play and feel her presence. I was so moved by the play. I haven’t had much experience with grief, but every night in that play, I felt it deeply—as if I were learning grief through the play itself. I feel like I grew a lot from doing that. We were in the deep end of sorrow that winter and into spring.
RABE: I feel like I’m back in the experience now.
HAWKE: You were so crazy good in Ghosts. It was a very intimidating thing to have seen you three times right before I started my play. How did it feel ending Ghosts, because ending a play is very strange and lonely, and you feel a little insane for a couple of weeks. And then you balance out.
RABE: It’s stressful, sad, and strange. Ending a job, a film, or a TV show can be incredibly emotional, but it’s not the same as a play. The schedule seeps into your cells—you become a creature of habit: when to wake up, when to have caffeine, when to eat. Being in the theater for eight shows a week, you almost go underground, and then suddenly, it’s over. Even though Ghosts was painful, I didn’t feel even close to ready to be done.
HAWKE: When you’re at a midpoint, you think you’re ready to be done with it, then towards the end, you think you can go on forever. One of my favorite Leonard Cohen quotes is, “You look good when you’re tired, you look like you could go on forever.” Weirdly, it’s from a poem called “How to Speak Poetry.” And it’s a true reflection of acting because you can get into that space where you feel like you could go on forever. You’re also in this community of people who are with you in that experience. You feel unified in this group that is going through it together, and it’s the least lonely a person can ever feel. But then, it ends, and you’re not ready for it to end, and suddenly it’s extremely lonely and anxiety-inducing, trying to carve back out who you were before it, and how you’ve changed from it.
RABE: You can never be who you were before. Do you find that with certain roles, when it comes to the end, you’re desperate to hold on to them, or sometimes you’re ready to let them go? And are there things that you do to encourage one thing or the other?
HAWKE: I feel like I’m always encouraging letting go. To me, great acting is the ability to be fully committed and involved while maintaining a relationship with yourself. I think sometimes people give themselves a lot of credit for losing themselves; that it means that you’re more serious and real. But to me, the real goal is to be fully committed and find a way to keep being you during it—to keep being a good partner, a good sister, a good friend, a good tenant. One of the hardest things, weirdly, was to keep up therapy while I was doing the play. But I think it was so valuable, because it was like checking back in with me every week for an hour. That’s what helped me release it when it was over. I also just had a big ending with Stranger Things, a character I played for seven years. It was funny because my dad called me—he was doing a TV show that was coming to an end—and he was like, “I feel so weird, I don't know if we’re going to do another season of this show. How will I let go of this character while also not letting go of him?” And my advice was to let go completely. Imagine you’ll never do it again. Because by the time you’ll do another season, you will be different. The characters can change too. You can build a new one. On Stranger Things, every season, I let go of whatever Robin from that season was and built a totally new one. For me, it’s about getting back to hearing your voice, your instincts, and your feelings, because you is where you filled up the cauldron before, and took that character out of the cauldron of you, so you always have to be churning.
RABE: Aren’t you doing a comedy right now?
HAWKE: Yes. Speaking of works in progress, I’m working on a romantic comedy—sort of. It’s a bit of a genre cruncher. It’s about a couple who convince themselves their relationship has sociopolitical consequences: when they’re getting along, they get promotions and their stocks go up; when they fight, their favorite celebrities get into car accidents, their stocks tank, and they get demoted. So they try to hack their life by hacking their relationship, forcing harmony to get whatever they want. As you can imagine, that has some negative repercussions. It’s about the danger of thinking you can control everything, and the need to just be honest. But it’s really fun. Lewis Pullman is such a great actor, and it’s the debut of an extraordinary first-time director, Graham Parkes. I’m also getting to play a role I’ve never really played before: a shrewd, smart, hot adult woman.
RABE: I feel like I’ve never done a run at comedy. But I’m very romantic about what the experience would be like; I’ve certainly romanticized it.
HAWKE It’s really fun because you get to play with all the silliness and the ridiculousness. But then, there’s this core of love and relationship, and I have probably spent the majority of my conscious years thinking about those two things. For better or for worse. You have this tremendous resource of the thing that you spend most of your time thinking about, so there's this depth there, and this messiness, and all of the experiences to draw from and to build off of. There’s also this kind of joy and silliness and mania to it.
RABE I was just thinking about how sad Ghosts was, but it was also so funny, as was Eurydice.
HAWKE: I cracked up laughing. But the thing about the truth: it can be funny and sad at the same time.
RABE: Exactly. We can become all things.
HAWKE: Absolutely. When you’re most available to laugh is also when we’re almost crying. When you’re just living in the most poignant emotional space, the wind could blow through you; you can laugh or cry, and you’re not sure which one. That’s the kind of art I want to be making, art that walks on that edge.
RABE: Tell me, what’s it like being on a tour as a musician? What’s it like being a rock star? (laughs) Is it you up there?
HAWKE: This is what’s confusing to me, because I kind of don’t want it to be me up there. If I’m going to stand in front of people, I want to be a character as a form of armor. Because no matter what, you’re playing a character. You can’t be you all the time on stage; you have to pick a version. But every time I tried to put a character on top of my writing, it felt false. The songs feel personal, so I don’t know how to be a character while singing them. That delineation confuses me. I haven’t figured it out yet. I want to look great on stage and put on a good show, but when I start trying to put on a show and pick a costume, it feels disconnected from the music. I almost just want to be naked on stage singing, because that would make me feel most connected—that’s how I feel in my songs. I’m committed to figuring out how to put on a show musically that incorporates all those things.
RABE: Do you get nervous in the same way as before the plays?
HAWKE: I get much more nervous. I have nerves that are almost at the level of a deterrent. Sometimes I think, maybe we just don’t do it tonight. With plays, the nerves are bad, but they’re not at the same level. It’s almost like it’s a ship that’s gonna leave the dock whether you’re on it or not, so you better jump on, versus being the captain of the ship with my music, saying, “I don't know if we should even leave the dock.” Also, there’s something about having your name on the poster. When someone’s coming to see you in a play, they’re coming to see the play, but with a concert, it’s just your name. If I could go back in time, I would have picked a band name, so it’s less pressure. When I was touring, I had stage deafness, where all of a sudden I just couldn't hear anything. It felt like time travel. I felt like everything moves in the slowest pace anything has ever moved, and the show’s over before you know it. I couldn’t hear my own voice, even whenit’s mixed perfectly; all I can hear is the audience.
RABE And what about public speaking or doing press? Do you get nervous about that?
HAWKE No. I sometimes get nervous if I think there’s a trick up someone’s sleeve, because I’ve been tricked before. Maybe now I have my guard up a little bit when doing press, but I don’t get nervous in that way.
RABE I get nervous even when giving a speech at dinner with really close friends where I know I’m safe. But with acting, I find tremendous comfort in the fact that it’s Lily Rabe playing this part.
HAWKE: Me too. I like implicating other people in my own disaster (laughs). I feel very nervous when no one else has been implicated. But the press isn’t nerve-wracking to me because I love conversation; it feels like where my comfort zone is. I’m happiest in a good talk.
RABE: You know when you’re on a press line, and then suddenly there’s this incredibly curious person who asks you a question that’s better than any question you could have ever imagined being asked. And it just makes the whole thing wonderful?
HAWKE: Yes. In those press walks, I can get nervous because I always want to be quippy and quick, and usually—as I’m sure you've noticed in this conversation—I’m just not that quick. It takes a little while for me to get to my point. So, sometimes I get nervous from, you know, Oh, I wish I had a spicy one-liner for this moment.
RABE: Like a sound bite. I’m not good with that either. I’m also not good with the log line. When people are like, “What’s this about?” I'm like, “Well, pull up a chair.” (laughs)
HAWKE: I’m bad at those, too, but I am good at talking.
RABE: Hamish [Linklater] always says, “Career is a dirty word.” Do you often think about your next steps, hoping for anything specific, or are you thinking about each project on its own in the moment you’re in your life?
HAWKE: When I was starting, I was trying to explain to my agents how I wanted them to think about my career. I would say things like, “I want to be sixty years old doing Shakespeare in the Park, so let’s keep that goal in mind to guide our choices.” In many ways, that’s still true, but I do think career is a dirty word. When Stranger Things first ended, I was in a sick brain about my career, and my sick brain was saying, “Your career is over.” I felt like I got lucky as a teenager and got to join something that worked, and everything else is the side effects from that luck, and now that luck ran out, you’re finished. I was really anxious, to the point of driving myself a little bit insane while I was doing the play. On every off day, I would take a bunch of meetings, because I was anxious from the loss of that anchor of Stranger Things. So, that was the strategy: I wanted to do whatever I could while I still could. Then, all of a sudden, I had this empty terrain of the foreseeable future, and I had no idea what was structuring it; it was really scary. I started thinking a lot about my career, what I wanted, what my goals were, and what was possible. As a young person, I had dreams, but with how the industry has changed, now those dreams are unclear. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a movie star anymore. The path is all changing, and because of the nature of how quickly things are changing these days, Hamish is right, career is a dirty word. It just has to be about experience and about what’s pulling you in one direction or another. It’s okay if that’s sometimes money, and it’s okay if sometimes it’s going to cost you money to do this job. You just need to do it. You just have to make sure that you’re keeping that balance and don’t get addicted to either thing. It’s easy for me to get preoccupied with strategy and career, but I try to put it to bed.
RABE: I don’t think about my career when I’m working on something I love. I go to work every day and come home feeling like I’ve given every ounce of my sweat and soul because this is what I love. I love that feeling.
HAWKE: It’s addictive.
RABE: I want to be there all the time. So, when I'm getting to do that, I’m not thinking about my career in any sort of way. There is something just innately unhealthy about it, but also delusional. I’ve learned over the years that I’m almost always wrong when I think something is going to be a certain way, and I’m rarely right. So, I try to keep those voices as quiet as I can.
HAWKE: It’s not a game that you can play with a strategy. It’s like saying you have a good strategy for playing bingo. You just need to follow your heart and try everything because no matter how good a career you end up having, if you don’t follow it from your gut, it’s going to feel hollow. No matter how bad your career turns out, if every choice you made was your own, and you made it with love, and with the people you love, and the stories that you love, then I think you’re going to feel like you had a great career.
RABE: I have a feeling that we will want to just keep working until the end. Hopefully, we’ll never have that moment where we have to stop and look back and assess anything. (laughs)
HAWKE: Let’s leave that for our obituary writers.
