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Maya Hawke, an actress known for her work in Stranger Things, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Asteroid City, and Maestro, has always had a leg-up on her acting competition due to her parentage, as she boasts Hollywood heavyweights Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman as her mother and father.
Maya Hawke, however, is clearly unbothered by the nepotism she’s benefitted from, as she recently said in an interview with the Times of London that she’s “comfortable with not deserving it and doing it anyway,” such as playing a member of the Manson family in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which was just her second feature film.
“I’ve been wildly made fun of for this clip when I said, on the red carpet, that I auditioned,” Hawke said of her role in Tarantino’s 2019 Best Picture-nominated film. “I never meant to imply that I didn’t get the part for nepotistic reasons — I think I totally did.”
Hawke then got right to the heart of nepotism and said that the idea of having a job or a role that she doesn’t deserve is something that the 25-year-old actress is “comfortable” with.
“‘Deserves’ is a complicated word,” Hawke said. “There are so many people who deserve to have this kind of life who don’t, but I think I’m comfortable with not deserving it and doing it anyway. And I know that my not doing it wouldn’t help anyone. I saw two paths when I was first starting, and one of them was: change your name, get a nose job and go to open casting roles.”
Hawke’s honesty is at least a bit refreshing in that she’s acknowledging the impact of nepotism on her life and not pretending it doesn’t exist.
In addition to her roles in Stranger Things, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Asteroid City, and Maestro, Hawke has also appeared in films such as Mainstream, Italian Studies, Fear Street Part One: 1994, Do Revenge, Wildcat (directed by her father), The Kill Room (co-starring her mother), and Inside Out 2, in which she voices Anxiety.
She also had a role in the 2020 Showtime miniseries The Good Lord Bird. Ethan Hawke was the star of that series.