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Maya Hawke on making new album 'Moss', the purpose of art and the response to 'Thérèse'
Feb 9, 2025
Maya Hawke is an actor – known for her roles in Little Women and Stranger Things – a musician and daughter to Hollywood royalty Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. As she prepares to release her second album 'Moss', we go in-depth on some of the album's themes and lyrics, her hopes for the record and the response to her controversial video for first single, 'Thérèse'.
Read The Forty-Five's review of 'Moss' https://thefortyfive.com/opinion/reviews/maya-hawke-moss-review/
For more music interviews, visit https://www.thefortyfive.com
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[Music] hi i'm charlie from 45 and it is my
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pleasure to be joined by maya hawk today how are you doing good hi nice to meet you nice to meet
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you um congratulations on mars i've been listening to it all weekend and i can't
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stop singing it and um yeah i'm just i'm it's a stunning record
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so looking at like all of the projects that you've been in um all of the stuff that
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you've got coming up a wes anderson film a film with bradley cooper like some stuff with your dad podcast
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all of this stuff stranger things obviously at what point in all of this stuff did you have time
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to record a full album and was it a kind of a process that you
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compartmentalized compared to all the other stuff or was it quite fluid well
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this this process was quite fluid i think the next time i might compartmentalize more
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right um this process was benjamin lazar davis who produced the
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record um and i had written i think two or three songs together and we had
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two or three days in a studio in la in between the shooting of a movie that i was gonna
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do and shooting stranger things and this other movie um and we were just gonna do it for two or
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three days but then about a month ahead of recording uh we i one of the movies i was doing
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fell through has happened and um so instead of having
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uh for two days we had kind of two weeks and so i called him and i was sort of
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like hey want to make a whole record like we have the time um
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and he was like yeah and then we got christianly hudson and my friend will grace involved and then kind of had
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a month of scatter shot manic songwriting that i think it never
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would have happened if like you know sometimes you catch everyone in the right emotional place where they're
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just together enough to get something done and just vulnerable enough that they have the drive to want to do
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something um well i think that that is sort of what happened um with everyone
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and so then we kind of had two quick weeks in of recording this record after having
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written it sort of scattered shot of a couple days of rehearsal and then recording and then i went back to
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stranger things um right after and then when stranger things wrapped and this film do revenge that's coming out in
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september wrapped which i was shooting simultaneously both in atlanta um when that both of those things finished
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we went back into a studio in upstate new york and finished up the record recorded two new songs and did final touches
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um and so this record sort of happened very much like simultaneously and a part of other
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things um and which is i think it's like a super vulnerable record um
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uh because it's not very like protected i guess um and uh that is the meaning of vulnerable
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unprotected brilliant mind via um and that's kind of that's sort of the
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how it happened so what it was the songwriting process like for you are you kind of
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voice memos on your phone type girl or is it is it all kind of you wait till you're in a songwriting headspace or
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while you were doing all this other stuff are you jotting down lyrics and things like that definitely a jotting down lyrics voice
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memos on the phone situation and then the lyrics get kind of perfected
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and sometimes sent with an accompanied voice memo to a willing collaborator
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and then sort of emails go back and forth with different versions and edits and thoughts and uh
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until there's some kind of rough first draft of a song and then we went into the rehearsal space and kind of
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being in the same room together quote unquote perfected them and by perfected i do not
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mean perfect i mean got them into a place where we wanted to record them um i don't believe in the word perfect
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d i mean that must be if you don't believe in the word perfect that must be quite a driver for you to do all this stuff
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if you are always striving for uh something better definitely always striving for something
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better um but no i just mean i don't believe the word perfect in it like perfect
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conveys in my brain images of like silicone and like robots and um
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uh like manicures and i am much more interested in them
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messy but worth capturing makes sense um i heard you talk a little
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bit about this album having a kind of thread that was about
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losing this kind of false sense of self that you'd created um i wondered if you
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could talk a little bit about that and where you think that came from and how this work allowed you to kind of move
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past it i think part of the reason why it the work was had that quality to it was because
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it did happen with such urgency and kind of franticness um of just being like i
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guess we have the time to make a record so let's make one so there wasn't a lot of time
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to like figure out what parts i wanted to hide um like it was just sort of like oh i
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guess we'll give it here's here it goes at all um even the things that i think are stupid or like not good enough or whatever um
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and then so there's that and then i just kind of noticed this like
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because again because it was made quickly to a certain degree i i had to kind of go back and source a lot of old
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material lyrically like bloomed into blue is from a poem i wrote in high
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school um uh i think um there's and there's other things in
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there that were like taken out of old diaries um things uh cell beltway drive was from a
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voice memo he made a year before um the there's a
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kind of a collection it felt like part of a collection of
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data and historical points from throughout my life of creativity um and
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i um which also made it very reflective like
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oh wow i was thinking about this when i was 17 and i'm still thinking about this
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like in this line i can draw connectivity there and like oh this was something i thought was my
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biggest secret or whatever when i was 20 and that still feels like a big secret or
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or why do i am i continually banging myself over the head with this
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desire to be this kind of person that i'm not quite um why not just let go and be that be who you are um
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so i think that it was kind of that that kind of making a personal history that
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also triggered that uh and then i think
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that i really found a way of working that was very
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the people that i was working with christian will and ben all really wanted me to be the most myself
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and like wanted the record to sound like me and wanted my opinions on things and
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and taught me so much about producing and recording music and playing music and um
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i think that that was also very empowering um uh and having
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having collaborators that want to move you forward not sort of like hold you in your place so that they can fill up the
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space around you you know um and so i think that that that those two things
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were a big part of why and then that's why i mean like i don't think the record itself i really
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listened to it recently and it's quite a sad record um and so i don't think the record itself
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really has within it the like catharsis or exaltation of like oh
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now welcome in the joy here it comes um but for me personally when the record
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was done that's how i felt was like okay now that sadness is like
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i can let that go and come into this new place so i think the record is is more of like a tomb or something uh
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then it is this kind of break or exaltation but the break came after that's so cool i think if i
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i mean it's like really cohesive as an album why was like mining my teenage diaries
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for stuff like one it would be so cringe and two i'd end up with this kind of like
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disparate mix of sounds but it's really interesting that you say like a lot of the stuff
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kind of carries through and they were like the same themes yeah i've noticed i noticed that i mean
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it's like uh bloomed into blue over and mermaid bar
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um all have like n kind of luna moth all have this like
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death in them this like kind of killing of an old self um or like near misses i
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don't know i just i noticed a lot of themes um yeah you mentioned uh luna moth there's
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a line in that that resonated that said i don't need you to hurt me i can do that myself
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um would you say that you are like your own kind of worst enemy in that regard like
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your own harshest critic
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i think i definitely i'm definitely very quite self self
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self sabotaging um uh and and pretty self um ridiculing
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uh but i wouldn't er and
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and i've had a a pretty nice life full of people who love me a lot and are
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really nice and kind so i think maybe yeah but i definitely think that the meaning
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of that line is is closer to like the feeling of being like i really
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like i i don't need anyone you know like there are those there are
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kids who like got punished as kids and i when i was a kid i would like if i
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like broke one of my mom's lipsticks i would like lock myself in my room and
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like sit and cry me like i'm in a timeout i've been bad and i think that that theme has gone on a little bit
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throughout my life and that song was about this feeling of being like i really don't need you to be mad at me
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i'm mad enough at myself like i really i am doing the work that needs to be
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done in terms of punishing me and put and like you know i so i definitely
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think that i'm i'm definitely my worst enemy
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it's um it's a really beautiful song i mean look it's there's so many things i want to dive into
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i think we should talk about therese i mean it was it's it's so catchy
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for one um but when you learn about the meaning behind it um
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which it would be better coming from you but it's about this painting in the mets
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which drew controversy as a painting of a young girl um why did that painting resonate with you
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um so much it's so funny i a couple days ago i was i i really like david sedaris and i've
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been reading one of his new books i think it's called happy-go-lucky um i like his audiobooks and
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in it he ha he is his uh a speech he gave at uh like a college a
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college speech and in it he was giving people kind of random advice and he was like
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fine find one thing that you're really offended by rather than like thousands of things and if you notice that the
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thing that you're offended by is a um a painting at the met where you can see somebody's underwear remember that the
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goal is to have less in common with the taliban not more um which of course is him and is funny
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but i was just sort of surprised to like hear him reference this painting that i'd also understand this controversy um
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but really i'd always um it to me it was less about the political
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controversy around the painting but the i'd always loved the painting as a kid
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and had never even thought about the creator of the painting i'd only thought about the subject like and i think that
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was that's kind of a child's relationship to art a little bit is like you watch the movie and you think those
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are real people you don't think about the person who wrote the characters or you think like oh look at those real people and the same was true for me in
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terms of visual art where i wasn't thinking about oh this is an impressionist painting oh
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this is a modernist oh this is this um i was just like look at that person
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and as a young girl that was a painting of a young girl where
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she wasn't like virginal and holding her white dress on
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a swing she was like tough and kind of like had no regard for the
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way her clothing was falling and like was in this kind of masculine positioning um
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and she felt modern and cool to me and unself-conscious and
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and not vain and spoke to me um and then when the controversy happened i was like
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oh my god of course someone had to paint her like that's not just a person
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there's someone who made all these choices about the composition of this painting and people will have feelings about those
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choices and like that they may or may not have been good or safe choices for that person um
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but i was also like oh no i love toures like i love terrestri like
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i love this painting person and so kind of this sad discovery that like some man created
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this image but then also this desire to be like wait but i want to protect i want to protect her
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from having the people think about her creator and not her
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um whether or not that's the right way to think about art i don't know but it was how i felt when i when i was
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thinking about all this stuff um was like it the the creator is of course
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important but i wanted to protect her too from in her own existence that exists outside of her creator um
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and uh and i so so there's that but then there's also so many other things in
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that song about just like relationships that i had as a young person
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and how when we are and this is i think it sounds similar theme of like when you're a kid
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and you are kind of first discovering yourself as an adult and just going through puberty and discovering your sexuality
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and um and it often happens in this at least for me it happened in these kind of
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more safe spaces like at slumber parties and like in in beautiful friendships and
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like hand-holding and um and then puberty really hits you with a storm and
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all of a sudden rather than your sexuality being this kind of quiet secret you're discovering by yourself
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alone in your room and with your friends it becomes this kind of projection on you of the world of like oh now you're
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sexual now you have to cover now you have to wear a top when you go swimming now you have to you know protect
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yourself from the prying eyes of society that wants to sexualize you and how sad that shift is um and
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so i i guess the song is kind of about about all that all that stuff i'm not being the most articulate right now
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you really are but um i think with the the video was really interesting to me
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because considering the kind of statement that you were trying to make um about all the stuff that you just
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talked about i think the response to the video in this kind of meta way
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almost backed up your points i mean there were the people that took the time to
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understand the statement that you were making but then there's also the kind of the side of the internet i suppose
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that is like stranger things duh without top on and like there's that kind of
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that kind of commentary which i think just goes further to to yeah but
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backing up what you were saying but i suppose when creating the video how much did you consider
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the response and how much was that the intended response yeah it's funny i definitely like when i
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think about art and creativity i definitely try not to think about them as statements or like as and try not to
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think about their response too much it's like if if you're trying to get a response
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like you're always going to lose because you just can't control the way that people feel or think
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so and and i don't i think that art can always be inherently political
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but i think as used as a propaganda tool for any political agenda it's that's a
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misuse i think it's like it you have to you have to make the art that you want to make and if it influences impacts
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people and and if it backs up a political agenda in some way or another fine great
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but if you're using it as a propaganda tool it gets more complicated and is and
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and is less what how where my motivation comes from um so i i really just wanted to express
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that feeling of of the interrupted process of of a pure
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discovery of free sexuality um and like that something that is just beautiful and just good and just safe
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and people being kind to each other is demonized um by society and and and
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and then it becomes bad and changes the way that you think about it um and i definitely stayed
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off the internet from the mo in when after because i knew i in in terms of the way that i thought
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about the response i knew there would be one um i wasn't sure how big um or like
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but i i i caught a couple glimpses mostly of like if you i i've noticed like on
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instagram if you look at your like tagged stories instagram seems to be a place that like
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maybe is more positive like than twitter or reddit or whatever or like the internet like generally people only post
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about things if they like like them um on their public public instagrams um
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and so i did and i got to see a couple of like young women especially like
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get like really get it um and or just young people like really
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be like oh this is what this is about and it made me feel free and good and i was like great awesome um
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that's what i wanted um and i think you know we're so i've said this before but we're so consistently and basically any
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kind of negative response i just call [ __ ] like to the nudity or whatever
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because we're constantly bombarded with like airbrushed billboards and like and
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doctored images of people's bodies and like violent pornography and like you
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cannot avoid that in the world and if anyone thinks that like their kids are being protected or avoiding seeing that
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kind of image they're wrong like um you're they're not and what i so i what i think in any like is
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that what i would have wanted as a young person was like you know the curiosity is inherently
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going to be there and it's all over billboards on the highway when you drive down them and i think that
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options of things to look at that aren't violent that are that are like beautiful
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that are not doctored where you can see people's like pimples and they're like you know pubic hair scars or whatever
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even but but they're so well lit and it's so beautiful and like and that's i i
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i just think that's a positive thing it definitely is i saw that i think i saw in the credits like you had worked
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with your brother on the video is that right he is the boy in the opening image in
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the car right okay makes sense um i also saw you credit him in the line of notes of the record as um
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let me find the quote as like making you love music again yeah
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so talk to me about that what what first of all my brother's my best friend he's an amazing actor um he's shooting a
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movie right now and uh just did his first tv show um and is just an incredible musician and actor
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in person like i'm about to do a live show soon but the last time i played live was as his backup singer and his
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band in providence um so we're best friends and during the pandemic we were
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pretty much alone together with our families um and we just started we played a lot of music
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together and he was in a big kick of practicing guitar and practicing songwriting
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and i'd really kind of shut down as a like songwriter um
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because i'd met all these wonderful songwriters who were so much better than me
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at guitar and at songwriting and i'd kind of been like you know what i think i can contribute as a lyricist
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but i'm not i'm not even gonna play that game i'm not even gonna touch my guitar i'm not even gonna like i don't i can't
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compete and i don't want to try and then i was sitting when i sat with my brother
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he started getting me to play guitar again with him and to come up with melody is writing with him and
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um not to kind of segment out my relationship to music so directly and
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he knows me so well but i also respect him so much and he was he was really able to like be
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encouraging in that way and to like make my ideas work really beautifully and
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uh and it just like i don't know it freed me up and made me feel excited about
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i think one thing that's difficult a great reason to go to college or drama school or conservatory or whatever is
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that it gives you time to practice your craft um while no one's gonna hear it really
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like to and to make mistakes and be bad and i think once you're in the public eye
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there's this desire to like be done because you don't want to do something and embarrass yourself like you don't want to get up
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and play guitar badly once you're already famous it's like this because then that's humiliating but like
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so it can kind of stunt your growth as a person and i think that it just that the
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during the pandemic it was a wonderful opportunity with my brother to kind of unstunt my growth a little bit because
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in the privacy of our own home and getting to make mistakes and whatever you know that's beautiful i've heard a
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lot of musicians talk about that time as like you know even to the extent of like usually when you're making a record
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you've got studio time booked and that's costing money and and like the this period giving them a kind of real
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freedom to experiment and try things in the way that you only can really like before your first first record so makes
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total sense um i think we're almost out of time but uh i just wanted to ask
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you know with so many things going on what does creating music give you that
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your other artistic pursuits don't and and what are your hopes for this record
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well as with anything whether it's a movie or a
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tv show or you just wanted to do well enough that you're allowed to make another one um
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so my hopes for this record are that i get to make another one um is it like the world goes okay you can try again um
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that's my hope for the record um and uh my
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uh and what's different about it it's all different every movie is different every record is different
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um there is a wonderful social consistency
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to music in terms of the relationships you build and getting to go back to them to make more music in the future
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versus the kind of world of making films and television where it's like
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you're with these 15 people in this location for this period of time doing this thing and then you all go off on your separate ways and do different
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things with the music like as long as everything goes well with you and those people you can kind of keep coming back
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to them and um and those and those relationships are really enduring and beautiful and
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kind of are a grounded through line of intimacy and friendship that kind of
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centers and grounds us kind of chaotic otherwise chaotic life um
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and so that's wonderful and kind of getting to take agency and control and be like
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i want to make this record now in this time in this place and and
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getting to kind of be in control um so a kind of grounded centered intimacy in terms of relationships and a
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sense of control um of your own kind of destiny and fate when things happen and what what's going
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to happen um is really cool thank you so much maya i will let you
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get on with your day but it's been great talking to you and congratulations again on the record thank you so much those
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are wonderful questions and you clearly listen to the album and it's so nice and thank you very very very much you're
26:16
welcome talk to you soon bye [Applause] [Music]
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you
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