Transcript of Maya Hawke

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Good Hang. I'm really, really excited about this episode with the great Maya Hawke. We had such a good conversation. We used so many words, and I just love talking to her. 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. We talk about joy and anxiety, the characters that we played together in Inside Out, too, and also how those emotions interact and connect in real life. It was a great convo. 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. We are joining with Willa Fitzgerald. Willa is an actress. She's on Pulse right now, a medical show on Netflix. She was in Little Women with Maya Hawke. And most excitingly, she's joining us from Hungary, which I believe is also where Budapesh is. So Willa, can you hear me? This 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. Our guest 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. I'm so grateful. Thank you for calling in from there. And thank you for talking about the great Maya Hawke today.

My delight. My delight.

I know. Now tell me how you two met.

We met actually in Ireland doing Little Women in 2017. And we just fell in love, I think. 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 the too perfect sister, a a little bit, which is I think why people don't love her and relate to her. And she also feels a little bit out of our time in the sense that she makes very classically gendered choices with her life. And so I feel like my personal mission was just to elucidate why we should like Meg and why we should understand her as a really relatable, lovely character. And I think we did it. 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 it was her first big production. And what did you see in each other? How did you become friends?

We really just bonded because I had already been working, but I was suddenly entering a new phase of my career where I was getting to do this project that I was just so excited about. And it was her first job, and she was so excited about it. And we were all staying in this hotel together outside of Dublin, and we would go to the pool together or the steam room and just talk about what really excited us about being actors. And we just really connected on an artistic level. And also, I think on just a personal level, because I think we're very opposite people in a lot of ways. I think that we both learn a lot from the other person and the way that they navigate the world because it's so different from maybe the way that we ourselves navigate the world.

How are you different?

I think the most reductive of two second answer would just be, I think I'm a very cautious person. And I think Maya is full of just a lust for life and a real 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. She's on a Broadway show. She performs, records music with a lot of different bands, including solo stuff. She's writing. She's acting like To your point, it feels like she ventures and is adventurous in the stuff that she does.

What I admire about her so deeply is that she just has this infinite curiosity and well of creativity that she seems to be able to draw on. She's really interested in just the world around her in a way that's so pure and limitless.

So we're going to get to the question you have for me to ask with 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.

How come?

Because she loves Grey's Anatomy, and she was the one who made me love Grey's voice anatomy. And when I was calling her and I was like, I've got this possible job. What do you think? I wanted to talk about it. And she was like, Do it. She was like, I will be the biggest fan of this show, please.

Has it been fun to play that part and 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 in those situations where you're really just playing at a job, is it the purest expression of the childhood fantasy of being an actor, where you're like, I am now a doctor, and I can now say people's lives.

I'm like, Wow.

That's a really cool thing. But no, I loved it. I do love learning new things, and I learned so much. And I'm also just a little nerd and loved just going through the big ass medical pamphlets that we would get given for every episode. That seems stressful. Oh, yeah. Like watching cadaver videos of the surgeries and being like, wow, medical school.

Do you, when I always try to ask people who are on medical shows, do you cut into fake bodies?

Real bodies.

Do you ever have to put a scalpel in? I know that there's fake torse and stuff. Do you do that?

Yeah. No, we had our prosthetics person was from Walking Dead. Our prosthetics were next level intense.

They were like, We're going to use some old zombies. We're going to get them in here. Yeah.

They were 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 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. And if so, whether there's a specific moment in which she recalls seeing the world in that way from a young age.

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, what is it like being considered a neppo baby? You're in the same profession as your parents. When, in fact, 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. See and what that's like, what you get to see or what you don't get to see. 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 I know. I mean, 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.

It's 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. Get 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 offer, subject to change. See visible. Com for plan 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. We haven't seen each other in person since Inside Out 2 premiere shenanigans. Dude, that movie. I know. That movie made people so happy. I know. It feels so seen.

What have you had people come up and say to you about that movie?

It's been one of the great honors. 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 annoyed? I was like, Not at all. Because sometimes if someone wants me to go put on an ice cream scoop or uniform, I'm like, I'm done with the ice cream scoop or uniform. But if there was a while where that wasn't true. But with this movie, That character, I've had so many people feel so seen by it and little kids feel so seen by it, and it helped them understand their brain better. I'll get a call from a friend of mine who is a parent, a friend's parent, and be like, Hey, would you do a recording? My kid's going through this hard time. Would you record something in the voice for my kid? I'll be like, Sure. 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. But the thing is, you just take deep breaths and trust that your daddy will be safe and that the doctors are going to take great care of him.

I 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 of moments when we were doing press where we kept looking at each other like, whoa, this feels so much bigger than us. And the response of the movie was so beautiful. 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.

That is good for the world.

That is good.

I know. It's so, so rare to have it hit all those benchmarks. It's like a rainbow.

I know. Plus a billion dollars, babe.

Plus, 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. It's crazy.

No, I mean, it is so true. The word billion and good for the world doesn't go together. Does not go together. No. No. Of anything. What have you learned about anxiety in the past year, your own or others, because you played that character?

So I think with the joy-anxiety relationship, it taught me a lot about showing love to that part of myself and allowing other people to see it so they can show it love. That is all actually a way to calm it down is inviting it into the conversation, looking at what it thinks and is worried about and addressing each point offering it a comfortable chair and saying, Okay, you're invited. I'm not trying to shut you out behind a door because that, of course, just works it up even more. 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 I know. There's so many people listening right now, everybody is so stressed. I know. Of course they are. Of course they are.

I mean, anxiety might be the defining emotion of our time.

It was so fun to work on those characters together because when the time is very scary, like these times, you want to find a way to tune in, check out, help yourself, help other people. You want to dip in and out. But when you're just getting someone going, toxic positivity, this is great, it's like, babe, things are bad.

Things are bad.

Things are real bad. So anybody listening, I want you to know that we know things are bad.

But also if you shut joy out completely, then you still need to welcome in some. 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, finally, Reilly, our character, has finally calmed herself down on the ice. She She's talked to her friends. She's feeling a little bit like herself. She gets back on the ice. She starts skating, and joy is being called back. And anxiety does a little... I told you this, a little genuflect, a little gesture of this way. For people listening, you can't see what Maya and I are doing, but we're doing a little... Like a little like... Like a little like... Like your table is over here, ma'am. Here you go.

Yeah.

It made me cry so hard. And I just thought, oh, the tiny gesture of that is what we're We must try to do during this bananas foster time we're living in. Because I mean, whatever we can do, babe.

Well, and to make room for each other. Yeah. 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. Here's a video of the Apocalypse. 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. 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. We can still talk and make space for each other. And 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. I experience you as an old soul. Have you been told that?

I have been There's been some ageist claims about my soul made.

You must get this a lot. People talk and they roll their eyes about people's 20s. 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. It's a more pain-free time. Recovery is faster. Recovery is faster. Yes. That's good. I can still... Yeah, just general recovery, bounce back from things more quickly, emotional recovery. Independence. It's this miracle window before insane amounts of responsibility, but after independence where no one's telling you what to do. That's the miracle of your 20s, right? Is that your responsibilities are there, but they're not usually kids and family, or they can be, but they're yet, but they are... But you have this freedom. That's a cool window of time. Miracle window is such a good way to say it, Maya.

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.

I was a sad kid or set point melancholic, like moody and emotional and homey. But a New York City kid is awesome. Use so much stuff to look at and do. My favorite place to go was the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Temple of Dendor, because of the mixed up files of Mrs. Bazzley Frankweiler. Do you remember that book? Yes, of course. The kids 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. I love that book, and I loved going to the Met, and I loved going to the Natural History Museum, and I loved going to the zoo. There was just so much to do, activity-based on a general... I was a little kid, and I love that. So many of your ways to express all your weird interests. I had lots of weird interests as a kid. I loved dead insects, the one, the preserved dead insects. I loved going to see them at the science museum and I loved rocks. There was a Just so much exposure and different kinds of people you could decide to be and so much interaction with difference.

That was so cool and I think so rare because so many people grew up in these little communities where it's like everyone feels the same. But in this city, you're interacting with humanity all the time, and you get to decide who you are, which is great. Then you get to high school, and it's like being in college for other people. It is crazy. I went to more clubs between ninth and 12th grade than I have been since. 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 adults, to be on the town. There's a lot of that.

Did you ever have a 13-year-old like, I'm in Studio 54, and I don't know how I got here? You did. 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.

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 figured out life. What were some memories of that time when you felt like an adult or grown up? You know a moment where you had a It was 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. I started just doing my own thing during the day. At high school, I experimented with smoking cigarettes, which you shouldn't do and is bad.

Very, very bad.

Very, very bad. Do not do it.

You look very Don't do it, though.

Yeah, don't do it. Don't do it, but you look cool. But I couldn't buy cigarettes because I was a kid. I would occasionally walk around to try to bum cigarettes off people. This 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 construction workers, and they smoke Newports, and I hated Newports. I would take the subway—this is a ridiculous story—to the East Village so I could bum Marlborough Golds off of... Because people in the East Village smoke Marlborough Golds outside Mcnally Jackson Bookstore. I would take this on my free period, my lunch break or whatever. I'd be like, I won't go to math today. I'll just take a double free period and I'll go take the subway to Greenwich Village or the East Village and bomb a Marlborough Gold off some intelligent, handsome man smoking outside of a bookstore.

Some documentary filmmaker.

Yeah, some documentary filmmaker, sipping a cappuccino. I was like, I am a grown up and this is an adventure.

This is exactly the story I picture. Just getting on the subway for a cigarette.

Because you have a preference, a neighborhood-based cigarette preference.

I mean, during that time, there was a Probably a sense of you when you knew deep down, even in high school, I'm not going to worry so much about math. I'm going to be an actor. I know what I'm going to do. When did you know you were going to be an actor? When did you feel like, I'm going to really make this my job or my life?

I knew I was going to be an artist of some kind. I think I was really afraid of being an actor because my parents are both actors, and I got to see that they were as successful 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. I was like, I don't know if this seems fun. Any I had experiences of going to school and trying to leave my house with an umbrella because there was some article out and there was paparazzi around the house. I was like, This seems… I don't know about this. It wasn't until 11th grade where I realized that there was nothing else that I was good at and liked. I was like, I like this. I am good at it. I feel like this is my community. The other people who like this, I like them. They put up with me because they'll put up with anyone. That's great about the theater community. They will put up with anyone unless you're mean. I just found my home and I was like, Okay, I'll figure out that other stuff.

This is what I want to do.

Okay, that's a great segue into our... We do this thing at the beginning of each show where we talk to people who know our guests. Oh, no. Yes. Just to talk well behind their back. It always helps me figure out if there's questions I should ask my guests and also to get to know the guests more. We talked to your friend Willa, Fitzgerald. She'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 drop out of school to do it, and I was really worried about it. It was like, Oh, whatever. I'd get to We're in this town called Dunleary. I've just never had an experience this positive. It was the four sisters and the guy who played Laurie, and we fell in love with each other. We were staying at this seaside hotel in this port town. The Royal Marine was the name of this hotel. It was walking distance from this farmer's market and these restaurants, and we just loved each other. It's gone for me now. I'm already so old. I I can't stay awake forever. But do you remember when you were 18 and 19 and you just didn't need to sleep at all? Somehow I could work a full 14 hours shooting day and then be like, should we go out? 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 have just been the raw joy of how in love with each other we were. 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.

It was just acting, acting, acting.

It was just like acting. We love it and we love each other and we're all... And it's Ireland and it's the ocean. And 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 on skinny-dipping in the port and it was freezing and It was just happy. It was happy. Fun.

That sounds so fun. She adores you, and she was talking about exactly that, how you all connected so fast. And she was saying that there is you have this lust for life. And that one of her questions was, do you feel like that's always been innate? It's 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 this little thing inside all of us from the minute we're born anyway. Did you always feel like you had that? Some 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.

I think I've always believed in magic and always believed in love in a really intense way. I think that that was nurtured in me from a really young age. My parents are magical. My mom was this magical creature who would come home from work and she was looking fabulous, but she'd take everything off and immediately put on a big velvet skirt and gardening gloves and go outside and teach me how to pull up stinging netels to make soup. The soup would be a witches' potion because it was good for you. She just had this magic to her. My dad would be like, We're going to watercolor together and we're going to make a masterpiece. I'll do this blue and you do red and we'll see what we create. There was just this imagination fostered in me from a really young age. I was really lucky to get that love and that exposure to seeing the world as a place where magic is possible. It's the luckiest thing ever to have that happen. I always think about it as 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 remember.

Okay, you know this.

I've read all of them out loud, and I still...

Harry Potter's mom protects Harry Potter with a magical spell.

I remember the mother dying 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.

There's actually a whole theory about that, but we'll just set that aside. Oh, really? Yeah, about children's stories. Then you have to kill the parents in children's stories because that's how children become the unfolding of their own story. They become little adults because they're...

God forbid, the mother lived long enough to see her child succeed.

Yes, 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, love spell, where then there were other different hard times in all of our lives, but that early magics protected.

Oh, my God.

They do say that from 1: 00 to 5: 00 or 1: 00 to 3: 00, it's so much... I mean, it's a lot of pressure on young parents because that time is so important. But so much of your belief system about the world and how you feel and if you feel safe in your attachment style is formed so early.

Because I've sensed from you both introvert and extrovert. This is true. Oh, my God, I got it right. You got it right. 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. I need all three cups to be somewhat full to be functioning. If I've had too much parties, work, no alone time, and just these two cups are full, oh, I'm gesturing, and this is audio. That's okay.

You're gesturing cups.

I'm I'm just drinking cups. But 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. I'm always trying to 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 in? Am I getting enough energizing social outside in the world, going to see a concert, going to see a play, going to something? I need a little bit of everything.

I love the cups idea. I do something similar where I think about a refrigerator and I think about magnets. Then in the best day ever, all five magnets are on the refrigerator, but I try to get three. It's like work, motherhood, friendship, spirituality, wellness, some care. What's my fifth magnet? A relationship. If you can get three out of five, it's like, Today, I was a good partner. Today, I did some good mom stuff, and I worked a little bit. Or it's like, No, today, I took care of myself. Today, I met with friends, and today, I gave my kids some good advice. Whatever is the magnet that you can put on there. Very rare to get five.

Yeah, but you don't want to go too long without having a day that has... You don't want to leave one of them off for a while. You get a dusty magnet. You don't want to get a dusty magnet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We could go. You and I could sell the cup and magnet I was just thinking this.

We could write books. We could make these magnets.

We could do separate podcast just about this, and we could make billions.

Billions of dollars, and it would be another good billion.

And it would be like, With me today is Maya Rock. She's, of course, the adventure of the Cup Theory. She brought me that theory when I was working on my magnet project, and together, we're doing it.

We've got cups and magnets. We're touring the world. Yeah.

Okay, you've finished Stranger Things. It's done. What was it like when it's, that's a wrap on Maya Hawk, a series wrap. I know you can't tell us anything, but I do hope you tell us how it ends. I will, of course, I will. Great. Thank you. You can tell me off the air. But what was it like hearing series wrap?

Well, I want to hear what it's been like for you, what it was like for you on Parks.

I think for people who don't know, right? If you're an actor on set, you get like, That's a season wrap on Maya, like season four, all right, and you get your last shot. Often people will clap and stand around and say stuff. But series wrap is a big deal. On a show like yours, which has been such a long journey for you and for everyone involved. There's been strikes, and there's been COVID in the middle of all of it, and everyone's gotten older and grown up, and everyone's been watching and watching and watching. A good AD will make sure that that series wrap It means something that people are there and they're there for you.

It's a big moment. Matt and Ross, who are amazing, wrote scenes that seem to have some connective tissue for the characters and for us. On this last day of shooting, we got to film these scenes that had this beautiful connective tissue. I actually think I learned something about acting that day and being present in your own emotion as a person and the emotion of the character and allowing those two wires to connect. My life has been changed as an actor. The way that I act has changed since that series, Rap Day. It was so emotional. I cried all day long from beginning to end in these crashing waves. I just love everybody on that show so much. It's shaped me so much We've been on such a long, complicated journey together.

You started when you were, what, 19?

I started when I was 19, which is lots of them started at nine and have been doing it for 10 years. I've been doing it for seven and started at 19. I got nothing on them.

But it's funny that you've been on a show for seven years and you still think you're the new kid.

Exactly. That's crazy. I do. I do still think I'm the new kid. But it was really emotional. I don't know if I ever have another experience like it.

Yeah, I mean, congratulations on that show. It's Thank you. Your work is so good. That show is so great. I'm sure you can feel the anticipation growing. I can't even imagine the press junket you're going to have to do when this show comes out. It's going to be crazy. It's going to be bananas of how you're going to be talking about... That show feels like... I don't know, that the audience has been through it with you, too. It feels like the audience has also been through it. Yeah. I guess is the only way to say it, that the kids on the show and the audience have not had an easy couple of years.

No.

And there's something about it that feels very cathartic about the end of it. Yeah.

I don't even know if I'm right about this, but I have always seen the upside down as a metaphor for depression and anxiety. In some ways of your teen years, it's really hard to be a teenager. The hormones that get released, the new emotions that get released of depression and anxiety and self-awareness and self-consciousness, it's a hard period of life to survive. I've always seen the upside down as this portal that opened up to all those emotions for these young people and navigating one's way out of it and through community and bravery and friendship. It's really emotional. The The allegories to what's going on in the world right now are plentiful. It means a lot to me to get to be a part of something like this because it's really a once in a lifetime thing. These adventure stories and these hero stories about kids and groups of kids grow up with this. They grow up simultaneously with you. I'm so grateful. It's such a special thing to get to be a part of.

That's so awesome. You and your friends, Joe and Sadie, are doing You're on stage. You're all doing a bunch of things together at the same time. Can I talk about your music for a second? Because I would be curious, your relationship to... You're such a talented and multi-talented artist who can do a lot of things very well. Thank you. What I imagine for you, what I picture in the future is us hearing you writing and directing and producing and doing so many things as well as acting in music. But right now, you have two very big careers in what are, it's I sometimes feel like very disparate ways of participating in the arts. It's like if acting is one kid and music is the other-Who's my favorite kid?

Yeah, who's your favorite kid? Well, okay, the way I like to see... First of all, I don't always do a good job balancing. I don't have a favorite kid. I love creativity and I love storytelling, and I see them as completely connected. If there was an outlet in the wall with two plugs, it's like different lamps source that you plug into the same power source is how I feel about it. That said, I'm a much more trained actor than I am a musician, and I'm a much more confident actor than a musician. Walking on to set or on to stay A rehearsal period is where I feel confident and comfortable. I feel like I know the rules, and I like it there, and I feel really grounded. Music is really scary. It terrifies me. Performing live terrifies me. Writing terrifies me. What people are going to make of my lyrics terrify me. It's all really scary. It's the same power source. One of the lamps is a scary Halloween lamp that I don't totally know how it works. The other lamp is my favorite bedside night light or something that's like, this is my comfort zone.

If you want to listen to Maya's Lamp Workshop, you need to go to the Beverly Wiltshire. You need to go to Cups and Magnets. Cups and Lamps and Magnets. Cups and Lamps and Magnets. No, it's so true. We've got a whole product line. Just to manifest, just for a second, for fun. Do you ever think about- Writing a musical?

No. Do you think about writing a musical? Yes, but that's not what you were going to say.

Oh, my God. But what musical do you want to write? I don't know. Yes. Okay, the answer is yes. Great. Write that. But do you ever have a fantasy of being on stage, singing, and singing with someone who you deeply… Do you have an artist whose voice musical artist, whose voice you fantasize about harmonizing with and singing with? Alive or dead?

I have a lot of different people that I love. I am terrified of harmonizing. You are?

That's the only thing that I can do. Really?

It really scares me. I am not a good harmonizer, and it scares me.

What about forget the harmony, a back and forthy?

But just singing with. I would love I would love to sing with Joni. I would have to do a one-note harmony while she danced all over the place. But I love Joni. This morning, I was listening to Judy Sill a bunch, and I love Judy Sill, and I love Joni, and I'm obsessed with Adrian Lancard, and I am obsessed with Taylor Swift, and I'm obsessed with... I just love...

You love female singer songwriters? I love singer songwriters.

I love songwriters. I just think they're so cool. It's like almost that fantasy is more like to get to write a song with someone. Not like singing it and performing it is less the dream. It's like writing a song with someone that would be the dream.

I love. Okay. Speaking of writers and artists, you have worked with in films, you've worked with really talented, distinct voices, Wes Anderson, Bradley Cooper, Quentin Tarantino. That experience of getting on a set with someone who feels like they have a very strong sense. Do you like that? You like being in someone's simulation, basically. Do you like jumping in there?

Yes. I find it extremely fun and really relaxing. Yes.

You were in once upon a time in Hollywood with five actors. You were all playing manson. Manson-ish people.

Mansonesque.

Did your mom give you—Oma Thurman is your Did she give you any advice about working with Quentin? Keep your shoes on. Keep your shoes on. Keep them on, baby. Are you going to try to get... Keep them on, baby. Keep them on. Keep those shoes on.

Perfect advice.

Perfect. Did she come to the set?

No.

Yeah, it's weird to have your parents come to set. Yeah. I know. I don't even- I don't even find it weird.

The shoes just wasn't in town. Well, I don't like anyone. We're New Yorkers. It was LA.

Right. She's like, I'm not going to LA. No. No, I have too many things to do here.

I've been to that set. Because I was a I think it's the best place on Earth.

Okay, tell me about sets you were on when you were a kid.

Oh, so many. I mean, one of the most memorable ones was the set of my Super Ex Girlfriend because I got to get into the flying suit. It was a movie that my mom did. It's really good and really funny, but she was a superhero, so she flew in it. I got to get into the thing and fly across this studio. But really, the thing I remember about sets is they all blur together, except I love Crafty, and I love It was like this safe little world where I could be alone. No one needed to be watching me. I could walk over to Crafty and take cookies and M&Ms and gummy bears and get them, and I could go watch the stunt people practice. Then I could go watercolor in the trailer, and I could go to the costume shop and helped them sew. It was just like Disneyland, basically, where I was independent and left alone and allowed to explore and allowed to just park my butt at the monitors and watch take after take after take after take. It's really where I fell in love with acting was backstage at the theater and on set.

I think it was the most fun thing ever. What always shocks me is when I invite people to come to set that they don't want to come, and when they come, they get bored. I'm like, What do you mean it's Disneyland? They're like, You just did the same scene nine times from one direction and then moved the camera and are doing it nine more times. How on earth is this like Disneyland?

This is so interesting. I'm the exact opposite. People want to come to set because they seem like it's interesting, and I say, It's boring.

Well, it's very true. I will say one of my favorite things in the world, generally, is to be not busy around a busy person. I still like to go with people to set because it's where I'm the most at peace because all my cups are getting filled. I'm not alone. There's tons of exposure to people if I want it, but I can be totally alone and not busy and just reading my little book somewhere and it's fine. It's got this social not social, privacy, all these different things all at once. It feels so good to me. It's like such a nice way to spend time with someone. It's like five minutes when they have a break. Hi, how are you? That was cool. That was good. Goodbye. I'm reading my book again. I love it. I think there's something I really love about visiting other people on set and having visitors on set when they feel like I do.

You brought up the cup system. Just once again, for 59. 99, you two can learn Maya's Cup system. It comes with a workbook. We do an in-person retreat.

You have to watch a seven-minute video before a paywall. It's going to be great.

Then we're going to be in Reno, November 15th. We're very excited. Okay, and Then the other question I wanted to ask you is because you played anxiety, the world is anxious. You're really in touch with those feelings, and you take great pride, I think, in being part of a big discussion about it. What do you listen to, watch, read? How do you make yourself laugh? Where are you getting your joy from?

Where am I getting my joy from? Well, recently, I got a lot of joy from The Fourth Wing book series. It's fantasy. It's like romantacy, fantasy, dragon College, basically, a dragon war college. That was my escapism of choice.

Unfortunately, You said so many things just now. Okay, so say again. It's called...

The Fourth Wing is the name of the first book.

It is a dragon college?

It's a war college for dragon riders in a fantasy universe. It's romantic. It's very sexy.

I've been looking for a new… fantasy is my new… I never thought it would be a genre I'm into.

I'm so into it. I'm so into it. I felt the same way. I'm so into it.

Have you read The Name of the Wind? No. Okay. Patrick Rothfuss, R-O-T-H-F-U-S-S. Rothfuss. Rothfuss. Rothfuss. Rothfuss. He wrote a book called The Name of the Wind. Okay. It is a series. It's part of the King killer Chronicles. It's a fantasy novel. It's basically just the story of a child who grows up in an inn and how he becomes this king killer. Cool. But it's very like school to train to get to the thing.

I love it. Me too. Give me a training sequence. Me too. I love it. Make me into the person I was always meant to be.

I know. I love it, too.

Force me to do it.

Oh, my gosh. I love that because what do you like about the fourth wing? What did you like?

It just- Well, there's incredible hardcore training sequences. Yes, Dragons. There's a very hot guy who's like, he's a rebel and maybe he's bad, except obviously the bad guys are actually the good guys and the good guys are the bad guys. You have to figure that out. It's awesome. He trains her because he's like, Their lives get wed together. Spoilers. He's like, You have to live so that I can live. He's like, Do sit-ups. She's like, Okay. It really works for me is all I can say. Do sit-ups.

Do sit-ups. Do You got to have a strong core if you're going to fight those dragons. You got to have a strong core. Those dragons go right for your core. You got to... Yeah.

She's like, Stabbing him with knives. He's like, Yeah, good job, good job, good job. It's amazing.

Do you read or listen?

I read this. I do both. I do a lot of audiobooks, but I've recently been trying to get back into paper books. That's been bringing me joy. I love that. I watch piles of TV. I love comedy. Recently, I loved the studio. That was really fun.

So funny. It wasn't Han. I mean, the choice, the sartorial choice isn't that alone.

Or incredible.

The way that character is so ridiculous. My buddy Ike is in that who is so great, too. That episode where he kept getting thanked at the Golden Globes. Adam Scott was thanking him.

It's just extraordinary.

It's just so fucking stupid and funny.

Also, the old-school Hollywood party where Zoe Kravitz is like, Old-school Hollywood means there's drugs in the I love that one. That one really got me. That's not what that was supposed to mean. She was so good in that episode. Yeah, so I've been doing that. I do.

Would you ever... I mean, I guess, Stranger Things Because it's like current fantasy. I mean, that's fantasy. But would you ever want to- Yes. Okay. Great. I don't need to finish it. Because I think that what I'm getting, I really don't need to finish it because what I'm getting from our convo today is story, adventure, fantasy, the bigness of life is what energizes you. You're excited about the next. You're really looking for it. You have a really big capacity for big, swirly ideas.

I really love them. I mean, not to mention that almost all of the best fantasy is about humans banding together to take over fascist regimes. It's just a general theme of fantasy and about the little guy rising up. I think that's partly why it's that as a genre is exploding right now. Romantacy and fantasy, people are really always at the top of the best seller list these days. I think it's because community, it's always about an unlikely band of maniacs and different people from different different places that find each other and come together to try to build a new world that works better for them than it used to.

I just want to say that getting the experience of talking about Inside Out 2 with you and getting to know you has been so great, and I hope we get to make another one.

I would really like to do anything with you. It would be so wonderful, but I really hope we get to make another one because I want to see more of anxiety and joy learning how to work together.

I know, and they have the same physical symptoms. Look, they get things done, okay? They get things done.

They get things done and they're excited.

Some emotions like to chill out, lie on the couch, and those are important, too. But anxiety and joy are going to keep things moving. Yeah. Yeah, I know. They are. I'm so happy that you came today. I'm joyful that you came today.

I was anxious about it. No, I wasn't actually. I was just excited. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for coming, Maya. I love you. Thanks for having me. I love seeing you. You're the best.

I love you so much. You're the best. You're the best. I would do something with you, even with our real flesh and blood bodies.

Okay, yeah, we can do that, too. I prefer animated, but it's just a lot easier for me in terms of hair and makeup.

Also, just the pajama pants aspect.

But if you do make a fourth-wing movie, I will play the dragon, the body of the dragon.

I would not be in charge of making it. Here's hoping. Here's begging the world.

I will donate my body to be the dragon.

I will donate my body to dragons.

Thank you, Maya Hawke. That was such a great conversation. I loved it. And I'm really For this Polar Plunge, I just want to talk about books because we talked a little bit about books and how they are bringing us joy. I want to mention again, a fantasy book that I love. It's called The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfusser. Eagerly awaiting the next book, sir. So chop, chop. So check it out and get your dragons on. We can't ever have too many dragons. But thank you, everybody, for listening to Good Hang. And bye. See you soon. You've been listening to Good Hang. The executive producers for this show are Bill Simmons, Jenna Weis-Burman, and me, Amy Poehler. The show is produced by The Ringer and Paperkite. For The Ringer, production by Jack Wilson, Kat Spalane, Kaya MacMullen, and Elea Zanaris. For Paperkite, production by Sam Green, Joel Lovelle, and Jenna Weis-Burman. Original music by Amy Miles. All I ever wanted was a really good hang.