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"I just see myself as a person who likes to try to tell stories, who's in love with language."
Maya Hawke wears many hats: actor, writer, singer. But for Hawke, everything comes down to words. "I just see myself as a person who likes to try to tell stories, who's in love with language." She's doing that with several recent projects, including her third album Chaos Angel (May 31). "I don't respond to vibes really," she says. Instead, she focuses on the lyrics and how the words align with the melody. Speaking of those words, she says, "I don't need anyone else to think that my lyrics are good, but I put a lot of work into them, and they're really important to me." Another story she's telling is that of the novelist Flannery O'Connor, who she portrays in the film Wildcat, directed by her father, Ethan Hawke. "He's my biggest supporter and my toughest critic." While she's busy filming the highly anticipated fifth season of Netflix's Stranger Things, you can next hear her voice the emotion Anxiety in Inside Out 2 (June 14). "I just am so honored to be a part of this project. My joke about it is that it's the only audition I've ever had where I cried. That's how powerful the story is."
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Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.
What inspired the album Chaos Angel?
Well, over the process of making my last two records—so I guess in the last five years—there have been a couple little melodies, little pieces of songs that I wrote that I didn't want to scrap the music that I wrote in order to fit it into the style of songwriting that I used on my first two records. I would write a poem, which I always had music to, but then I would not include that music because I was like, "I'm not good enough, someone else would do this better." I was kind of waiting for my own brain to finish them or to develop a relationship with my collaborators where I wasn't embarrassed to show those things and work on them together without being like, "Oh, no, yeah, we should change that. You're so right." So I had these little skeletons and that, in some ways, was the inspiration for the album, trying to do that. I think it's in terms of the initial instinct for making this record, that's what it was.
There does seem to be the foundation of a story in a lot of your music. Do you feel that too?
Yeah, I don't respond to vibes really. I was talking about this earlier today, but my young relationship to music was basically all lyrics. The idea that music could either accompany good lyrics or ruin good lyrics. Or neither. [laughs] And the idea of a good song with bad lyrics was a foreign concept to me. What do you mean it's a good song with bad lyrics? Then it's not a good song. And it's only in the last couple of years that I've started to understand how you could have a good song with bad lyrics, you know? I've started to be able to hear music better and hear melodies better and more clearly, I think just from putting time into it. It actually does make music more enjoyable for me to listen to, because I can think about it more than one way. [Before] if I heard a cheesy line, my brain would just turn it off. Now I can be like, "Oh, wow, like that bridge melody is so cool." That's a really exciting new way for my brain to develop. I think that's why I write music the way that I do, it's really story-forward. I don't need anyone else to think that my lyrics are good, but I put a lot of work into them and they're really important to me. That's kind of my entry point of connection to songs; how does it make me feel? I was listening to an interview with Miley Cyrus recently, and she was talking about how writing a song is like catching a lightning bug in a bottle. Because sometimes these feelings that we have, they are like moments of a really strong feeling that isn't all of you, that's not how you feel all the time. It's just a moment of like, "Whoa, I'm so angry, I'm gonna punch a wall," or whatever. But instead of punching a wall, you can capture something about that feeling and put it in the bottle that is a song. And sometimes if you do a good job, that lightning bug can stay alive, and it can light up the room for other people, too. I heard her say that and I was like, "Wow, that's a perfect way of describing how I think about it." If there isn't a feeling that is well articulated in that jar, I'm not that interested in the jar. But I respect that other people are.
Do you think that your background as an actor gives you a different ability to how you perform and write music?
I think my relationship to story definitely does. The two questions I get asked the most are "Have your parents given you any good advice?" and "What do you like better, music or acting?" [To] the second question, my answer is always kind of boring because they come from the same place for me. They're just the same thing, because it's storytelling. It's emotional storytelling. It's trying to put blood in language. And the reason that music is such a more popular art form than poetry, for example, is because it's putting blood into the words, it's putting life, body and motion and feeling, and so that's what excites me about both art forms. I just see myself as a person who likes to try to tell stories, who's in love with language and wants to tell stories and capture lightning bugs. I think you can do that in a movie. And I think you can do it in a song.
Is there a song on Chaos Angel that you think really represents the album?
"Black Ice," the first song on the album. Generally, I really am a person who thinks about albums as albums, like it almost hurts me to do a single release process because it's so out of context, it feels like putting out a movie scene by scene, not even a trailer. I'd rather do an overture with little moments of each song like a trailer, but instead, it's these scenes taken out. The reason I put "Black Ice" first is because other than singles the songs that people listen to the most are the first songs and so that song to me is like the overture for the album. And then "Chaos Angel," the last song, and you will hear in both of them little remnants of other songs on the album kind of tucked into the outros of both songs. But I would say that "Black Ice." If you only listen to one, I'd want you to listen to that one. Unless you hated slow-tempo music in which case, I would recommend a different one. Unless the tempo being slow makes your brain turn off which, according to the industry, apparently people think that that's true. I don't think it's true. There's always so much pressure to have up-tempo songs.
I'm always interested to know what other music you were listening to while creating this album.
You know, I was listening to a lot of James Blake. And a lot of Adrianne Lenker. And those two different things came at different angles of what I was aspiring to do. Like the production, James Blake is so encapsulating when you put on your headphones and you listen to him; you just feel like drowned. You feel this kind of perceptual relationship to even the distance from you of where certain instruments are and both [are] sometimes extremely sparse, but still feels all consuming. Then with Adrianne Lenker, there's just this straightforward songwriting where the song would be good in any format, like if you played it like a rock song, the song is good. If you play it like a folk song, the song is good. If you add drums to it, it's good. If they have no drums, it's good. The songwriting has so much integrity and mutability. And that's really what I was going for, I was trying to inspire myself to be more playful with production. Because on my first record, and even edging into my second record, I think I was really afraid that because I was an actor, if anyone thought that they heard any trickery in the song, if they felt like they were trying to be manipulated at all, they'd be like, "Oh, like, I guess she bought a record." I'd rather have people not like the simple version of just being me and my song and my voice, than for them to think that I was trying to trick them into thinking I was good or something. So on my third record, I think I finally let go of that fear. I'm open to playing with different kinds of production and be more experimental and play with all the tools available to me. But I also don't want to get so distracted by the tools that I allow any song on this record to not work in a living room on a couch. I want them to all be songs where if I had a friend come over and be like, "What are you writing?" I could play it for them on the couch, and they would go, "Cool." Not like, "Wow, I bet that'll be great when you record it."
What was it like working with your father on Wildcat about the writer Flannery O'Connor, and also what appealed to you about doing it?
The working part wasn't complicated at all. Like, I've been working with my dad my whole life. He's been an extraordinary teacher for me, in the arts, in my life. We've done play readings in my living room together, he's helped me with auditions, I've read things he was working on and given my thoughts, we've done watercolors together and written poems together. That was our connection ground, especially since my parents got divorced when I was pretty young and so my time was split. When we were together, that's how we made up for the space. We found this intimacy and making art together made up for the time that we had to spend apart. So making a movie together felt like a very intuitive continuation of the same thing that we've always been doing, it didn't feel that different. What feels different is having to put it out and do press for it. That part is intimidating, because you're taking such a private relationship and such a beautiful one and kind of just letting anyone say whatever they want about it, and that's really vulnerable. And you also don't want to turn it into a commercial entity where you're like, trying to sell your intimacy. But also you have to talk about it, you have to acknowledge it. So it's a dance, it's a difficult dance. Nothing about the experience of making the movie would make me not want to make another one. Some things about the experience of putting it out would make me not want to, but I'm sure we will.
Doing press for this film has been interesting on two fronts, because it is about a feminist icon yet sometimes the questions asked of you have been less than progressive. There's also the questions about the relationship with your father, Ethan Hawke. Questions that often wouldn't be asked of a normal actor to director relationship. How do you find that balance in answering those questions?
It's interesting, we were doing press recently, and a journalist asked my dad, "Were you always thinking of hiring Maya for this movie? And what made you want to make such a feminist movie?" And he was like, "Well, it was my idea to make the movie and Maya is what made me want to make such a feminist movie." And then they go, "Oh, yes. And Maya, have you borrowed any shoes from your mom recently?" The journalist apologized for it after and was like, "The editor made me ask that question," but it was just such a funny, one-two hit. But it's that kind of moment where you're like, "Oh, God, what are we doing here?" But it's also great and it's also really nice to get to do press—which is always complicated—with someone that you know has your back, you know, that's nice, too. But really working together was just great. I really trust him as an actor, and I really trust him to know when I've done my best work. He's my biggest supporter and my toughest critic. He will tell me if I haven't done my best, which also means that I can trust him to know that if we're moving on, and he's like, "Okay, we got it, we're ready to move on," he feels I've done my best, and I trust his taste. So it was a really great experience.
Everyone is talking about the new season of Stranger Things, so obviously I have to ask about it. I know you can't say much, but what can you say? How excited are you?
Well, I'm extremely excited to be working on the show again. And I will say like, I'm not an original cast member, I joined in season three, so I initially had some new kid on the block feelings. It wasn't really until the end of season four that I really felt like I got my feet on the ground. And now I'm coming back for my last season, and I love everyone. We're all having such a good time, and I'm so relaxed. I finally got comfortable. It's like being a high school senior. It's like, I finally feel like I run this ship at this school and now I have to go. It's not that I run the ship, I just mean that I'm totally comfortable on the ship. But this season is awesome. It's got all the stuff that people have liked about previous seasons but it's even bigger. Every year it's bigger and wilder and answers more questions, which I really like. My favorite thing about this season is, I've had a lot of questions about like, "Oh, how does that actually work? And why did that happen? And what does that mean?" This season really goes through and is answering a lot of those questions. So exciting.
You're also a voice in Inside Out 2, which excites me so much because I loved the first film. It's such a beautiful and fun story. I know you were a fan of it. What did it mean to you to be part of the sequel?
It's awesome. That movie gave an entire generation and community of people a new way to think about their feelings. I think it had a huge impact. Because all of a sudden, we had this metaphor for, or at least I did, for who was taking the wheel. And it gives you a different perspective where it's like, "Oh, wow, I guess Fear is at the wheel right now. I don't want Fear to be at the wheel." So instead of feeling like you are your feelings, you can feel like your feelings are happening to you a little bit more, and that's really liberating and really smart. And then to have it [Inside Out 2] enter this realm of puberty, this new phase almost feels like even more essential. It's an even more complicated time we need even more guidance on. I just am so honored to be a part of this project, and it's so fun to work on. My joke about it is that it's the only audition I've ever had where I cried, and the director cried. That's how powerful the story is. Even in him [director Kelsey Mann] explaining to me what the movie was about, because I couldn't read the whole script at the time, that made me cry, just like the elevator pitch had me crying and him crying. So it's just the best.
