Maya Hawke claimed that the size of actors’ social media following is becoming a big factor in some producers’ casting decisions and whether a movie is able to be made.
During a recent appearance on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast,” the 26-year-old actress, who is the daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, recalled that her parents “worked hard” to protect her privacy when she was growing up.
However, she believes that actors are expected to share more of their personal lives in the age of social media and their follower count is becoming increasingly important to their careers.
“I think that the line between actor and celebrity has gotten extremely blurry,” the “Stranger Things” star said. “And I think in some ways a celebrity is someone where their personality is what is the draw. And what I always wanted to be was 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.”
Hawke said that “there are wonderful, incredible actors I admire whose personalities we all know very well.” However, she noted that for others, navigating the industry is now about “figuring out the footing in these changing times of social media and public personality and also how difficult it is to get things made.”
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Hawke explained that some producers insisted that the cast’s combined Instagram follower count must meet a certain quota for a project to move forward.
“I don’t care about Instagram. Instagram sucks. Right, well just so you know, if you have over this many followers you can get the movie funded,” the actress said. “It’s a really confusing line to walk.”
Hawke recalled that she had talked to “so many smart directors” about how she wanted to delete her Instagram account, but they warned her that it would impact their casting decisions.
“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,'” she said.
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However, Hawke noted that a small number of directors are exempt from basing their casting decisions on the cast’s follower counts.
“There are these 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,” she said.
“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,” Hawk continued.
“You can really focus and sit there and make a film with them,” she added. “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.”
In 2019, Hawke starred in Tarantino’s comedy-drama film “Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood.” The actress appeared in Cooper’s 2023 biographical movie “Maestro,” based on legendary conductor Leonard Bernstein’s relationship with his wife Felicia Montealegre. Hawe was a member of the star-studded ensemble cast in Anderson’s 2023 science fiction comedy drama “Asteroid City.”
Hawke currently has 8.9 million followers on Instagram.
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