Maya Hawke has delivered some memorable performances in recent years, despite some questionable unsolicited advice along the way.
The Stranger Things actress recently revealed the insulting behind-the-scenes suggestion a producer once gave her about how she could “look prettier” on camera, which “really upset” her.
“A director told me — actually, I think it was a producer, but they were in cahoots — told me that I looked prettier with my mouth closed and that I should close my mouth after I speak more often,” Hawke recalled on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Admitting that she is “kind of a mouth-breather,” she explained, “I do often let my mouth hang open but depending on what character I’m playing, because I feel like jaw tension and mouth tension is so important to express what kind of person you are.”
Hawke added, “Where you leave that, I think, is really important. And I was really upset about being told that I should close my mouth more to look prettier, because I was playing a character that was distinctly unselfconscious. That was a trait of the character, that they didn’t care about looking pretty and they were unselfconscious, and so it was clearly just a desire of the aesthetic of the thing, and I was annoyed about it.”
Although the Inside Out 2 star wouldn’t name the producer or project on which the comment was made, Hawke noted she spoke up for herself at the time.
Hawke is next set to reprise her role as Robin Buckley for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, coming to Netflix in 2025.
