Two years ago, the singer and actor Maya Hawke spent a few weeks hanging around Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, where her younger brother, Levon, was a philosophy major. She was on hiatus from filming “Stranger Things”—the Netflix show on which she plays a band geek turned monster slayer—which prompted her to reflect on her lack of formal education. After graduating from St. Ann’s, an artsy private high school in Brooklyn, she enrolled at Juilliard but dropped out after a year, when her role in a “Little Women” miniseries clashed with the school’s ban on undergraduates working professionally during term. “I had a real chip on my shoulder about it,” she said, of bypassing college. “I was, like, ‘Oh, did I skip a big step? And does my skipping that step make me dumber, less smart, less deserving, or less interesting?’ ” At Brown, she’d crashed on her brother’s floor while cosplaying as a coed—slipping into seminars, lazing around the quad. Her conclusion? She wasn’t missing much. “That healed me,” she said. “It made me see what I actually like about my own life.”
Still, Hawke, who is twenty-five, feels some angst about leaping immediately into her career, perhaps because her parents are Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. In the past year, she has had roles in“Maestro” and “Asteroid City,” and in her father’s film “Wildcat,” in which she plays a young Flannery O’Connor. Hawke says that one way she processes the “big, big feelings” around her snowballing fame is by leaning into songwriting. Her third album, “Chaos Angel,” comes out on May 31st. On the track “Missing Out,” she sings, “I was born with my foot in the door / And my mind in the gutter and my guts on the floor.”
Hawke is tall, with the shaggy, sandy hair of a glam rocker and gangly limbs. She recently spent a day at Complete Music Studios, in Prospect Heights, where she practiced “Missing Out” with her band. Although she keeps an apartment near Union Square, she is rarely in New York these days; “Stranger Things” is shooting its final season in Atlanta. She said that she was sad the series was ending but was looking forward to having more free time. “You don’t really have agency over your own life,” she said. “You, like, have to ask permission for everything.” Netflix had granted her a short window away from set to perform on the “Tonight Show.” The next day, she’d fly back to Georgia.
For the performance, she wanted to project what she called a “college vibe.” Stylists rolled racks of tweed pants and natty cardigans into the studio—ivory-tower drag for the band. Hawke, who had arrived wearing a black The Who T-shirt, wide-legged black pants, and black ballet flats, thumbed through pleated skirts. She lingered over a gray one before declaring it “maybe a little too boygenius.” She settled on a red plaid mini-kilt, which she paired with a white oxford shirt, frilly anklets, and tan lace-up boots.
“This is very ‘Gilmore Girls,’ ” she said. “I will say that the ruffles on the socks are potentially too out of control.”
“We can get you plain ones!” a stylist called out. A red varsity jacket with the words “Chaos Angel” in fuzzy letters appeared. Hawke slipped it on.
“The pièce de résistance!” she said, twirling. She explained the album title: “I just kept thinking of this angel who, like, cries salty tears and curses her maker, because she is, like, the Amelia Bedelia of angels. You know, always trying to do the right thing and just missing it.”
A small black Doodle mix ran into the room and flopped over for a belly rub. “Hi, Lucky,” Hawke said, bending down. “She was my mom’s dog, but we fought over her for years. And then my mom got a pug that was attacking her, so that’s how I won that battle.”
Just then, Hawke’s boyfriend, Christian Lee Hutson, who sometimes plays guitar in her band and produced her new album, came in to show her his “Tonight Show” getup: navy blazer with an Argyle tie.
“Distinguished gentleman,” Hawke said, raising her eyebrows.
“You know, Maya, I’m planning to shave for this,” Hutson said, stroking his bushy blond beard.
“No, you are not,” she said, making an exaggerated frowny face.
“But my character is supposed to be in college,” Hutson said.
“Maybe he’s a professor’s assistant,” Hawke said, shrugging. “Keep the beard.”
The band retreated to a practice room to run through the song a few times. Hawke’s singing voice is smoky and warbly, like Brigitte Bardot crossed with a Disney princess. She has an awkward way of swinging her limbs as she croons. “My moves are very hands forward,” she said. “Like a spider monkey.” She credits her dad with her inability to stay still. “He needs his brain occupied,” she said. “I inherited that. I cannot just sit in my trailer and look at the wall. I have to make something every day.” She smiled and added, “I mean, there’s no two ways about it. I was deeply indoctrinated in the arts.” ♦
