Why Maya Hawke Is Staying Private While Joining The Hunger Games in a Very Public Era

A familiar franchise challenge

Hawke, 28, has joined major fandoms before, playing Robin Buckley in Stranger Things and voicing Anxiety in Inside Out 2. In Sunrise on the Reaping, she portrays Wiress, a brilliant and unconventional victor.

Her recent work has ranged from releasing the folk-pop album Maitreya Corso to appearing in film and television projects. She has also been a Prada brand ambassador and married singer-songwriter Christian Lee Hutson.

A moment on set

Hawke recalled filming the scene in which Wiress comes out of her coma. The crew grew quiet, she said, and the stillness made her feel that something meaningful was happening. She described the moment as grounding and said it pointed her in a direction she has continued to follow.

Love and friendship

Hawke called herself a hopeless romantic and said she finds magic in what can happen between two people. She described falling in love with friends and wanting to spend holidays with them.

She said friendship breakups have caused some of the deepest heartbreak in her life. Unlike romantic relationships, she said, people may enter friendships without expecting them to end, leaving them especially vulnerable when they do.

Keeping some things private

Hawke married Hutson on Valentine’s Day but did not put wedding photographs in the press. The account notes that one paparazzo captured the procession. She has spoken about the lasting tension between performing publicly and maintaining a private self, particularly for people connected to projects as prominent as Stranger Things and The Hunger Games.