Maya Hawke

0:00Right now, get up to 15 % off select storage solutions. Put heavy-duty HDX totes to good use, protecting what's important to you. The solid, impact-resistant design prevents cracking, and the clear base and sides make items easy to find even when the totes are stacked. Find select shelving and tote storage up to 15 % off at the Home Depot to organize every room in your home, from your garage to your attic. Visit homedepot.com. How doers get more done. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Good Hang. I'm really, really excited about this episode with the great Maya Hawk. We had such a good conversation.

0:36We used so many words, and I just love talking to her. And we talk about really interesting things today. We talk about growing up in New York City and being a kid there. We talk about her love of magic and wonder and a life of imagination. And we talk about joy and anxiety, the characters that we played together in Inside Out 2, and also how those emotions interact and connect. in real life. So it was a great convo. And as always, we like to ask someone who knows our guest, a friend, a fan, someone who has a question that they think I should ask the guest before we start the podcast. So we are joining with Willa Fitzgerald.

1:17Willa is an actress. She's on Pulse right now, a medical show on Netflix. She was in Little Women with Maya Hawk. And most excitingly, She's joining us from Hungary, which I believe is also where Budapest is. So, Willa, can you hear me?

1:43This episode is presented to you by Walmart. I'd like to say that I'm a pretty good gift giver. And for me, it's about making the extra effort to find the perfect gift. Walmart has the top brands we all love in one place. Nespresso, Nintendo, Apple, you name it That's why it has to be Walmart for all my gifts this year Guess Best Gift Giver Award goes to yours truly Get the brands everyone loves at prices you'll love at Walmart Who knew? Go to walmart.com or download the app to get all your gifts this season Get up, what do you say? All I ever wanted was a really good hand I'm so grateful Thank you for calling in from there And thank you for talking about the great Maya Hawk today.

2:26My delight. My delight. I know. Now tell me how you two met. We met actually in Ireland doing Little Women in 2017. And I mean, we just fell in love, I think. That would be it. It was a love story. It was a love story for sure. You both were, she was playing Joe. You were playing Meg. What was it like to play Meg? What did you bring to this Meg? I feel like my personal mission was to bring a humanity to her. Because I feel like she's often sort of like the, she's like the too perfect sister a little bit. Which is I think why people don't love her and relate to her. And she also feels a little bit, you know, out of our time in the sense that she makes very classically gendered choices with her life.

3:10And so I feel like my personal mission was just to like kind of elucidate why we should like Meg. And why we should understand her as like a really kind of relatable, lovely character. And I think we did it. I think we actually I think we did manage to pull that off. And here you are, two young actresses at the time joining this production. I think for Maya, it was her first big production. And what did how did you what did you see in each other? How did you become friends? We really just like bonded because I had already been working, but I was suddenly kind of entering a new phase of my career where I was getting to do this project that I was like just so excited about.

3:48and it was her first job and she was so excited about it. And, and we just, you know, we would like go to the, we were all staying at this hotel together outside of Dublin and we would like go to the pool together or the steam room and just like talk about what really excited us about being actors. And, and we just like really kind of connected on, on like an artistic level. And also I think on just a personal level, cause I think we're kind of very opposite people in a lot of ways. I think that we both like learn a lot from the other person in the way that they navigate the world because it's so different from maybe the way that we ourselves navigate the world.

4:24How are you different? I think that I'm, I think, you know, the most like reductive two second answer would just be, I think I'm a very cautious person. And I think Maya is like full of just like a lust for life and a real sort of like verve that she just is unafraid in situations that I sometimes feel a little bit more unsure in, I think. Maya does a lot of things, you know, she does, she's on a Broadway show. She performs, records music with a lot of different bands, including solo stuff. She's, you know, she's writing, she's acting like she, to your point, it feels like she ventures and is adventurous in the stuff that she does.

5:08What I admire about her so deeply is that she just kind of has this sort of like infinite curiosity and like well of creativity that she seems to be able to draw on. She has like a real, she's really interested in just the world around her in a way that's like so kind of pure and like limitless. So we're going to get to the question you have for me to ask Maya. But just before we do, I want to say congratulations on Pulse. Oh, thank you. I love a medical show. Well, you know, Maya was a big reason of why I took that job. Ooh, how come? Because she loves Grey's Anatomy, and she was the one who made me love Grey's Anatomy.

5:45And when I was calling her and I was like, I've got this, like, possible job. What do you think? I want to talk about it. And she was like, do it. She's like, I will be the biggest fan of this show. Please. Has it been fun to play that kind of part and, like, get into the jargon and get into the vibe of what it would be like to be in an emergency room? What's been fun about it? I feel like it's like, it's one of the most, I feel like in those sort of situations where you're like really just playing at a job, it's kind of like the purest expression of like the childhood fantasy of being an actor where you're like, I am now a doctor and I can now save people's lives.

6:20Like, wow. Wow. And I think, you know, like that's like a really cool thing. But no, I loved it. I love, I do love learning new things and I learned so much. And I'm also just like a little nerd and like loved just going through like the big big ass medical pamphlets that we would get given for every episode and just being like, you know, oh yeah. Like watching like cadaver videos of like the surgeries and being like, wow, medical school. Do you, when you, I always try to ask people who are on medical shows, when you cut, do you cut into fake bodies? Real bodies. Like, do you ever have to put a scalpel in, you know, I know that there's fake torsos and stuff.

6:58Do you do that? Yeah. No, we had, we had our like a prosthetics person was from walking dead. Our prosthetics were like next level. They were like, we're going to use some old zombies. We're going to get them. Yeah. They're like, we got this. Okay. So thank you for getting on. And what question do you think I should ask Maya today? Do you have any thoughts? I'm curious whether her sort of like lust for life, her ability to be so interested in the world around her was something that she feels is innate to her as a person, or whether it's something that she feels like was cultivated either by herself, by her community, by her parents.

7:38And if so, like whether there's a specific moment in which she like recalls seeing the world in that way from a young age. You know, what's great about that question is I think people really reduce the children of actors and artists in the way that they talk about, you know, what is it like being, you know, considered a Nepo baby? You know, you're in the same profession as your parents when, in fact, like, what is it like growing up with artists that are parents and how do they introduce you to art? And also, what is it like being a New York City kid? I mean, a lot of people don't know the feeling of growing up in the city and what that's like, What you get to see or what you don't get to see.

8:20You know, like how does it limit you and how does it open you up? And I think that's a great question. Really well done. You seem like a woman in her 30s who has her shit together. Congratulations. Thank you. I mean, you know, it's all an illusion. Really, really nice to meet you. It's such a pleasure. Thank you so much for the time and for helping me get to know Maya a little more. I really appreciate it. So fun. Thank you again. Bye. This episode is brought to you by Visible. When your phone's plans as good as Visible, you've got to tell your people. It's the ultimate wireless hack to save money and still get great coverage and a reliable connection.

8:54Get one-line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot for$25 a month, taxes and fees included, all on Verizon's 5G network. Plus now for a limited time, new members can get the Visible plan for just$19 a month for the first 26 months. Use promo code SWITCH26 and save beyond the season. It's a deal so good, you're going to want to tell your people. Switch now at Visible.com. Terms apply. Limited time offers subject to change. See Visible.com for planned features and network management details. Maya Hawk is with me. Maya, I'm so happy to see you. I'm so happy to see you. You know, we haven't seen each other in person since...

9:36Since Inside Out 2 premiere shenanigans. dude that movie i know that movie made people so happy i know i feel so seen what have you had people come up and say to you about that movie i it's been one of the great honors like my little sister was asking me the other day she was like do you get annoyed if someone asks you to do the anxiety voice or do you get an idea i was like not at all because sometimes it's like if someone wants me to go put on like an ice cream scoop or uniform i'm like i'm done with the ice cream scooper you know but and like and but there was a while where that wasn't true but with this movie the that character i've had so many people feel so seen by it and like little kids yeah feel so seen by it and like it helped them understand their brain better and like i'll get a call from a friend's parent like from like a parent a friend of mine who is a parent not a friend's parent um and be like hey would you do a recording like my kid's going through this hard time would you record something in the voice for my kid and I'll be like sure and I'll turn on the little speaker and be like hi oh I know it's really scary when parents have to go to the doctor's office and I know that it makes you nervous and I and I but the thing is you just take deep breaths and trust that your daddy will be safe and that the doctors are gonna take great care of him and like I um and so I like will do things like that and I don't mind at all I love it because it's so I know I feel the same I feel like you and I had a couple moments when we were doing press where we kept looking at each other like, whoa, this feels so much bigger than us.

11:10And the response of the movie was so beautiful. And I know that that is very rare to be in something good that people like, that people go to see, that is a good experience. Those don't always happen. And that is good for the world. And that is good, I know. That's like, it's so, so rare to have it hit all those benchmarks. It's like a rainbow. I know. Plus a billion dollars, babe. I know. That's what I'm saying. For something that makes a billion dollars and is good for the world, I don't think there's anything that does that. No. It's crazy. No, I mean, it is so true. The word billion and good for the world doesn't go together.

11:50Does not go together. No. Ever. Ever. What have you learned about anxiety in the past year, your own or others, because you played that character? so much and I think with like the joy anxiety relationship I it taught me a lot about showing love to that part of myself and like allowing other people to see it so they can show it love and that that is all actually a way to calm it down is like inviting it into the conversation like looking at what it thinks and is worried about and kind of addressing each point and then ask and then like offering it a comfortable chair and saying like okay you're invited you know you're not I'm not trying to shut you out behind a door yes because that of course just works it up even more yes um and so I think in giving the biggest thing I learned from doing this and being allowed to be welcomed into the beautiful world of this movie is to give my anxiety a comfy chair yes it's so well said and for people listening right now like everybody is so stressed i know of course they are of course they are and i mean anxiety might be the defining emotion of our time it's been it was so fun to work on on on those characters together because when the time is very scary like these times you know you want to find a way to tune in check out help yourself help other people like you want to dip in and out but when you're just getting someone going like toxic positivity like this is great it's like babe things are bad things are bad these are real bad so anybody listening i want you to know that we know things are bad bad and But also if you shut Joy out completely, like, then you still need to welcome in some.

13:51Like, you're not helping anybody if you shut out Joy completely. Well, there's a beautiful moment in the movie, and it's such a testament to the work you did as Anxiety and the work the animators do and the work that Kelsey Mann did, the director, and Pete Docter, the producer, and all the artists, and Pete, the creator, and just all the writers. Meg, when anxiety does a small little gesture to let—when Joy is being finally called back. Yeah. Finally. Riley, our character, has finally calmed herself down on the ice. She's talked to her friends. She's feeling a little bit like herself. She gets back on the ice.

14:35She starts skating, and Joy is being called back. and anxiety does a little I told you this like a little genuflect like a little gesture of like this way like yeah for people listening you can't see what Maya and I are doing what we're doing like a little like like your table is over here man go yeah it made me cry so hard and I just thought oh like the the tiny gesture of that is like what we're just we must try to do during this bananas foster time we're living in. Yeah. Because that is, I mean, whatever we can do, babe. Well, and to make room for each other. Yeah. And like, and to make room to get off of our phones, which we were talking about before we started rolling, but to get off of our phones where we're just being bombarded by like, here's a funny video of a cat.

15:24Here's a video of the apocalypse. Here's a, like, here's a funny joke that is offensive. Here's a funny joke that's your humor but would offend someone else. Here's another video of the apocalypse. Like, it's like to get out of that and into like, oh, here you and I are sitting with each other. We're looking each other in the eyes. We can still do this. Yes. We can still talk and be and make space for each other. Yeah. And like, you know, look at the people around us and that we have to make time to do that, even as we make time to try to figure out what is happening. I agree. And, you know, I kind of experience you as an old soul.

15:58Have you been told that? I have been. And there's been some ageist claims about my soul made. You must get this a lot. People talk, they roll their eyes about people's 20s. And what's good about being in your 20s? Oh, what's good about being in your 20s? I mean, I'm already starting to have more random body pain. But I know I have less than I will have. So like it's a more pain-free time. Recovery is faster. Recovery is faster. Yes. Um, so that's good. I still like, I can still, yeah, just general recovery, bounce back from things more quickly, emotional recovery, like independence. Yeah. You know, it's like this kind of miracle window before insane amounts of responsibility, but after independence where no one's telling you what to do.

16:49And that's like, that's the miracle of your 20s, right? Is that like your responsibilities are there, but they're not like usually kids and family, you know, or they can be, but, you know, yet, but they are, but you have this freedom. And that's a cool window of time. And so bounce back. Miracle window is such a good way to say it, Maya. Like you're very wise. It's true. It's like if only one can know the time they're in and appreciate the time they're in, it's hard to do. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Okay, speaking of the time you're in, I want to jump back to little Maya. Yes. Because I'm always really interested in what it's like being a New York kid.

17:27I was kind of a sad kid or like set point melancholic, you know, like moody and emotional and homey. and like I, but a New York City kid is awesome. Used so much stuff to look at and do. Like my favorite place to go was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Temple of Dendor because of the mixed up files of Mrs. Basilie Frankweiler. Do you remember that book? And the kids like ran away, for anyone who hasn't read it, they ran away and they live inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art and they sleep in the queen's bed and they steal money from the fountain and it's awesome. And I love that book and I loved going to the Met and I love going to the Natural History Museum and I love going to the zoo and there was just like so much to do activity based on a general as like a little kid and I love that and so many different ways to express all your weird interests like I had lots of weird interests as a kid I loved like dead insects like the one that preserved dead insects and I loved going to see them at the science museum and I loved rocks and there was like you know just like so much exposure and different kinds of people you could decide to be and so much interaction with difference.

18:38And that was so cool. And I think so rare because so many people grow up in these little communities where it's like everyone feels the same. But in this city, you're like interacting with humanity all the time and you get to decide who you are, which is great. And then you get to high school and it's like being in college for other people. Like it is crazy. I went to more clubs between ninth and 12th grade than I have been since. Right. There's a lot of pressure for New York kids to be very interesting. There's a lot of pressure to be interesting, to be adult, to be on the town. Yes. There's a lot of that.

19:19Did you ever have like a 13-year-old like, I'm in Studio 54 and I don't know how I got here. Yes. You did. Yes. Or you're just in a club and it's like, I'm little. I might be too young for this. I'm too little for this. Hmm, interesting. Seemed like a good idea at first. I'm proud of myself for getting in here, but now how do I get out? But I love it. I would do it. I would raise kids in New York. I think it's awesome, an awesome way to grow up. To your point, there was an independence. You took the subway, you walked around, you kind of figured out life. What were some memories of that time when you felt like adult or grown up?

19:55Ooh. You know, a moment where you had like an adult moment. Well, I realized in high school that I could cut class. Yeah. And that there was no real ramifications to doing it. And so I started just doing my own thing during the day. And in high school, I experimented with smoking cigarettes, which you shouldn't do and is bad. Very, very bad. Very, very bad. Very, very bad. Do not do it. You look very cool. Don't do it. Yeah, don't do it. Don't do it. But you look cool. Yeah. And I, but I couldn't buy cigarettes because I was a kid. And so I would occasionally like walk around to try to bum cigarettes off people.

20:42This is what I'm talking about. This is what I picture a New York kid doing. But I went to school in Brooklyn Heights. And the only people who smoke in Brooklyn Heights are like construction workers. And they smoke Newports. And I hated Newports. So I would take the subway to, this is a ridiculous story, to the East Village. so I could bum Marlboro Golds off of, because people in the East Village smoke Marlboro Golds, like outside McNally Jackson bookstore. And so I would like take this on my free period, my lunch break or whatever. I'd like be like, I won't go to math today. I'll just like take a double free period and I'll go take the subway to Greenwich Village or the East Village and bum a Marlboro Gold off some like intelligent, like handsome man smoking outside of a bookstore.

21:24Some documentary filmmaker. Yeah, some documentary filmmaker, like sipping a cappuccino. And I was like, I am a grown-up, and this is an adventure. Oh, this is exactly the kind of story I picture. Yeah. Just getting on the subway for a cigarette. Yeah. And then getting back— Because you have a preference. A neighborhood-based cigarette preference. Really ridiculous. I mean, during that time, there was probably a sense of you when you knew deep down, even in high school, like, I'm not going to worry so much about math. I'm going to be an actor. Yes. I know what I'm going to do. When did you know you were going to be an actor?

21:54You know, when did you feel like, I'm going to really make this my job or my life? I knew I was going to be like an artist of some kind. I think I was, I mean, I think I was really afraid of being an actor because my parents are both actors. And I got to see that, you know, they were as successful as one as I could ever have dreamed to be in that profession. and still had so much job insecurity and stress and highs and low moments. And I was like, I don't know if this seems fun. And, you know, I had experiences of, like, going to school and, like, trying to leave my house with, like, an umbrella because there was some article out and there was paparazzi around the house.

22:38And I was like, this seems eh. Yeah. Like, I don't know about this. And so it wasn't until, like, 11th grade where I realized that there was nothing else that I was good at and liked. And I was like, you know, like, I just, I like this. I am good at it. I feel like this is my community. Like the other people who like this, I like them. And they put up with me because they'll put up with anyone. You know, that's great about the theater community. They will put up with anyone unless you're mean. um and uh but i so i would just like found my home and i was like okay i'll figure out that other stuff this is what i want to do okay this is a great that's a great um segue into our so we do this thing at the beginning of each show where we talk to people who know our guests oh no yes and just to talk well behind their back and and it always kind of helps me figure out um if there's questions i should ask my guest and also to get to know the guest more and we talked to your friend Willow Fitzgerald.

23:42She's the best. She's the best. Now you two met on the set of Little Women. Still the greatest experience of my life. Wait, tell us why. It was my first professional job. I had to, I had to drop out of school to do it and I was really worried about it and it was like, oh, whatever. I get to Ireland. We're in this town called Dunleary. I've just never had an experience this positive. We, it was the four sisters and the guy who played Lori and we fell in love with each other. And we were staying at this seaside hotel in this port town. And it was the Royal Marine was the name of this hotel. And it was like walking distance from this farmer's market and these restaurants.

24:25And we just loved each other. And you know, it's gone for me now. I'm already so old. I can't stay awake forever. But do you remember when you were like 18 and 19 and you just didn't need to sleep at all. Yes. Like somehow I could work a full 14-hour shooting day and then be like, should we go out? Yeah. Like, and then like, you know, and then I'll learn my lines and then I'll go to sleep for two hours and then go back to her. I don't know how we did it, but it might've just been the raw joy of how in love with each other we were. Yeah. Like we were going to set on the days that we weren't working and being like, I have a note, you should try this in the next scene.

24:57We just. It was just like acting, acting, acting. It was just like acting. We love it and we love each other and we're all, oh. And it's Ireland and it's the ocean. And like we did a moon spell where there was a full moon and we bought crystals from this guy in town. And we put the crystals in the moon and then we went skinny dipping in the port and it was freezing. And it was like just happy. It was happy. Fun. That sounds so fun. I mean, she was talking, I mean, she adores you. And she was talking about exactly that, like how you all connected so fast. And she was saying that there is this, you have this lust for life.

25:33and that one of her questions was, do you feel like that's always been innate? Like it's kind of what we're talking about, nature versus nurture. You're the daughter of artists. You're looking at, you want to be an artist. Do I want the life of an artist? What does that even look like? But there is always like this little thing inside all of us from the minute we're born anyway. Like, did you always feel like you had that? Some kind of lust for life. And her question is, Do you think it was innate or was it nurtured by the environment that you were in or both? I think both. Yeah. I think I've like always believed in magic and always believed in love in a really intense way.

26:14And I think that that was nurtured in me from a really young age. Like my, you know, my parents are magical. and like my mom like you know was this magical creature who like you know would come home from work and she was like looking fabulous but she'd take everything off and immediately put on like a big velvet skirt and gardening gloves and go outside and like teach me how to like pull up stinging nettles to make soup and like and the soup would be a witch's potion because it was good for you. And like, she just had this magic to her. And my dad would be like, we're going to watercolor together and we're going to make a masterpiece.

26:56And like, I'll do this blue and you do red and we'll see what we create. Like there was just this imagination fostered in, in me from a really young age. And I just like, I believed, I was really lucky to get that kind of love and And that kind of exposure to seeing the world as a place where magic is possible. And I just, it's like the luckiest thing ever to have that happen. And I think it like, I always think about it as like the Harry Potter. You know in Harry Potter, how when his mom dies, she puts a spell on him that protects him from dying with love. I kind of remember. Okay, you kind of know this.

27:37I've read all of them out loud and I still. Harry Potter's mom protects Harry Potter with a magical spell. Because, of course, the mother always has to die. She always has to die for the kid to be on an independent adventure. In every single story. Yeah. Okay. There's actually a whole theory about that. Oh, really? Yeah. About children's stories. And then you have to kill the parents in children's stories because that's how children become the unfolding of their own story. Right? They become little adults. Right. God forbid the mother live long enough to see her child succeed. God forbid. But I always feel like that period of time in my life where my parents, what my parents did and gave me this magical spell, like love, love spell where like, you know, then there were other different hard times in all of our lives.

28:22But that early magic's protected. Oh, my God. And they do say that like from like one to five or one to three, like so much. I mean, it's a lot of pressure on young parents. because that time is so important. But like so much of your belief system about the world and how you feel and if you feel safe and your attachment style is formed like so early. And are you, I mean, because I've sensed from you both introvert and extrovert. This is true. Oh my God, I got it right. You got it right. So what, tell me about that. How have you figured that out? Okay, I see myself as having three cups. There's the extroversion socialization cup, the alone time cup, and the with one other person having an intimate conversation cup.

29:08Ooh. And I need all three cups to be somewhat full to be functioning. Yeah. Like, if I've had too much parties, work, like, no alone time, and just these two cups are full, oh, I'm gesturing, and this is audio. That's okay. The people, you're gesturing cups. I'm gesturing cups. But, you know, then I really feel bad and I need alone time. If I've got too much alone time and not enough socialization, I really feel bad and drained. So I'm always trying to, like, look at my schedule and my life and be like, am I getting enough friend time in one-on-one? Am I getting enough alone time? And am I getting enough, like, energizing, social, outside in the world, going to see a concert, going to see a play, going to something?