Maya Hawke is no stranger to receiving direction on set, but one particular note left her stunned.
During a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Stranger Things star opened up about the worst feedback she’s ever received from a filmmaker—though she kept the names and project under wraps.
“A director told me—actually, I think it was a producer, but they were in cahoots—that I looked prettier with my mouth closed,” Hawke recalled. “And that I should close my mouth after I speak more often.”
The 26-year-old admitted that she tends to breathe through her mouth when playing certain characters, but emphasized that it’s an intentional choice.
“I feel like jaw tension and mouth tension are so important in expressing who a person is,” she explained, demonstrating how small facial shifts can shape a performance.
The critique stung even more because it ignored the essence of the role she was playing. “I was really upset about being told that I should close my mouth more to look prettier, because I was playing a character that was distinctly unselfconscious,” she said. “They didn’t care about looking pretty, so the note was clearly just about aesthetics. And I was annoyed about it.”
Podcast host Josh Horowitz then asked if she had pushed back against the comment. Hawke, known for her outspoken nature, responded with a smirk, “I mean, you’ve talked to me for 30 minutes—what do you think?”
His immediate response: “You did. You said something.”
While she didn’t reveal which project the comment was tied to, Hawke has built an impressive résumé. She has starred in Little Women, Do Revenge, Asteroid City, Wildcat, The Kill Room, and Maestro. She also voiced Anxiety in Pixar’s Inside Out 2 and will reprise her role as Robin Buckley in the highly anticipated final season of Stranger Things.
Hawke admitted she’s not ready to say goodbye to the show that helped launch her career. “I don’t know if you can be emotionally prepared,” she confessed. “The tears that were shed in these last few weeks of filming were overwhelming.”
As Stranger Things nears its conclusion, one thing is clear—Maya Hawke won’t be silencing herself anytime soon.
Source: Entertainment Weekly