Maya Hawke Says Some Producers Cast Based on Actors’ Amount of Social Media Followers
Maya Hawke is giving insight into a possible stipulation for actors when auditioning for roles and looking back on the harsh criticism she once received from a producer.
While sitting down for the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the Stranger Things star reflected on how “the line between actor and celebrity has gotten extremely blurry” in the age of social media and that some producers may cast someone based on their follower count.
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“What I always wanted to be is an actor where the work is what the draw is, not the personhood. But the industry keeps changing, and you have to change with it and understand that all of these things are getting blurred,” she explained.
Though she noted that there are “wonderful, incredible actors” she admires and “whose personalities we all know very well,” many are left to just figure “out the footing in these changing times of social media and public personality and also how difficult it is to get things made.” She then explained how actors can be cast based on the number of followers they’re bringing with them.
“I don’t care about Instagram, Instagram sucks. But just so you know, if you have over this many followers, you can get the money movie funded. Well, I want to make the movie, so it’s a really confusing line to walk,” she said.
While working, Hawke recalled speaking with “so many smart directors” about deleting her Instagram until they inform her why it’s important to have. “They’re like, ‘Just so you know, when I’m casting a movie with some producers, they hand me a sheet with the amount of collective followers I have to get of the cast that I cast so if you delete your Instagram, and I lose those followers, understand that these are the kinds of people I need to cast around you.'”
However, the collective follower count may not apply to everyone. Hawke reiterated that there are still “few directors, maybe there’s ten of them, who have reputations that are vast enough and have shown how well they can work and what they can do, that they get given a lot of freedom and a lot of privacy.”
“And they don’t have to have a thousand extra BTS guys, taking footage and asking you to make a video of you peeling your orange on the side of the set,” she added. “You can really focus and sit there and make a film with them. And I’ve been privileged enough to really work with three in my life. I got to work with three sets that were like this. I got to work with Quentin [Tarantino], I got to work with Bradley Cooper, and I got to work with Wes Anderson.” (Hawke starred in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Cooper’s Maestro, and Anderson’s Asteroid City.)
Hawke currently has 8.9 million followers on her Instagram.
When later reflecting further of time spent on set, Hawke recalled criticism she once received from a producer about her appearance.
“A director told me — actually, I think it was a producer, but they were in cahoots — told me that I looked prettier with my mouth closed, and that I should close my mouth after I speak more often,” Hawke said. “Now, if you watch any of my performances, you will see I am a mouth breather. I do often let my mouth hang open…because I feel like jaw tension and mouth tension is so important to express what kind of person you are, and some people have a very tight mouth.”
“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 like distinctly unselfconscious. That was a trait of the character, that they didn’t care about looking pretty and they were unselfconscious. And so it was clearly just a desire of the aesthetic of the thing. And I was annoyed about it.”
When host Josh Horowitz asked whether Hawke made it known she was annoyed, the actress quipped, “I mean, you’ve talked to me for 30 minutes. What do you think?”
Hawke did not identify the name of the director or producer who made the comment.
The actress recently voiced Anxiety in the Pixar blockbuster Inside Out 2 and will say goodbye to Stranger Things when the final season streams later this year.
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