Maya Hawke, the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, is an actress and singer best known for her appearance in Netflix’s Stranger Things. The budding celebrity has also appeared in a number of films. Her appearance in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood as a member of the Manson family paved the way for larger roles in Do Revenge, Asteroid City, Wildcat, and The Kill Room. As a musician, she has released two self-produced albums, the most recent of which was Moss in 2022.
Early Life
Maya Ray Thurman Hawke is Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke’s oldest daughter. Her parents, both well-known actors, met on the set of the sci-fi/romance movie Gattaca in 1996 and welcomed Maya on July 8, 1998, just a few months after their wedding that May. Her birthplace is New York City.
Levon, Maya’s younger brother, was born in January 2002. She has three younger half-sisters, one on her mother’s side and two on her father’s. Thurman and Ethan Hawke split in August 2005, after seven years of marriage.
Maya was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child and claims she was expelled from school for her inability to read. She enrolled in a school for youngsters with learning problems and finally learned to read, though she told NPR in a 2020 interview that her reading abilities are still “limited.”
Hawke grew up in Brooklyn and went to Saint Ann’s School. She began modeling as she grew older, and she has since appeared in ads for AllSaints, Calvin Klein, and Vogue. Her primary interest, however, was acting. Hawke took part in school plays and summer acting courses. But it wasn’t until later in high school that she truly considered a career as an actor. She attended Juilliard after graduating from high school. She dropped out after only a year to pursue her job.
Stranger Things
Hawke told The Guardian that her parents were initially against her following in their professional footsteps. “They were wary of the public life side of acting and the difficulties of that,” she said. “They also tried to protect me from falling into acting. They wanted to ensure I had a strong enough backbone, my own passion for it, and work ethic. They didn’t want to cart me along every red carpet or have me do bit-parts in their movies. Once I was old enough, and it was clear they were my choices, they were very supportive.”
Hawke made her television debut in the BBC’s 2017 rendition of Little Women. Ladyworld (2018), a thriller based on William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, was her first film. Her big break came in 2019, when she joined the cast of Netflix’s hit program Stranger Things, which was in its third season at the time. Hawke won a Saturn Award that year for Best Supporting Actress in a Streaming Presentation for her performance as Robin Buckley. Then, in 2020, Hawke and her co-stars were nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Drama Series.
Hawke was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Streaming Drama Series at the 2022 Hollywood Critics Association TV Awards when she returned to the role in Season 4. She will appear in the show’s last season, which is expected to begin production before the end of 2023.
Movies and TV Shows
Hawke’s first jobs were on television, but she has quickly amassed a number of credits on the big screen. She has appeared in three Wes Anderson films in 2023: Asteroid City, Wildcat, and The Kill Room. Her father directed Wildcat, and her mother appeared in The Kill Room. Hawke has stated that she enjoys acting with her parents, saying, “I love working with both of them.” They’re incredibly cool, and they’re great at what they do.” Maestro, her next film, will be released in theaters on November 22, 2023.
Music Career
Hawke is an indie-folk singer and songwriter in addition to her creative endeavors as an actor and model. Hawke’s debut album, Blush, was released in August 2020, followed by Moss in September 2022. In March 2023, she sang her song “Thérèse” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Hawke has stated that she is not interested in pursuing a full-time singing career. In 2019, she told Vogue that she sees music as a tool to share her poems. “Since I was a little girl, I was always writing poetry and trying to put it to music, sitting on the couch with my dad singing old folk songs, like Hank Williams and Townes Van Zandt and Johnny Cash,” Hawke said. “It seems to me, in this day and age, that the best way to communicate and translate poetry is through music.”
Personal Life
Hawke recounted an amusing narrative about the greatest trouble she ever got into when she lied to her parents on a June 2023 episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. “I said I was going to therapy, and I really went to lose my virginity,” Hawke said, adding that her dad was “very, very upset.”
Hawke identifies as LGBT and keeps her personal life private. She was said to be dating Rolling Stone executive Gus Wenner in 2019, and she has also been linked to musician Spencer Barnett and actor Tom Sturridge.
Net Worth
Hawke’s net worth is reported to be around $3 million as a result of her modeling and acting roles. According to Seventeen, Hawke “likely” made between $200,000 and $250,000 every Stranger Things episode.
