Maya Hawke has made a candid admission about her role in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The actor and singer, who is the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, made a small appearance in the 2019 Oscar-winning film, playing one of the Manson Family cult members.
As Hawke’s career has gone from strength to strength, thanks to roles in Stranger Things, which she said has led to a “depressing” deluge of Netflix viewers at her music shows, and Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, the actor has found herself at the centre of a debate surrounding Hollywood nepotism.
Many stars whose parents are celebrities have rallied against this, with even the parents themselves, including Tom Hanks, arguing that “‘it doesn’t matter what our last names are” when it comes to securing roles.
However, Hawke, whose mother played Mia Wallace in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), has now refreshingly claimed she was cast by the director in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood specifically because of her parents.
Addressing the controversy surrounding “nepo babies”, Hawke said that, when she previously said she auditioned for the role, she “never meant to imply that I didn’t get the part for nepotistic reasons – I think I totally did”.
Hawke told The Times that that her casting was deliberate as Tarantino wanted to cast a lot of stars whose parents were famous, including Margaret Qualley, who is Andie MacDowell’s daughter and Rumer Willis, the daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore.
When asked if she believed such actors “deserved” the opportunities over stars without famous parents, Hawke shared her view on the debate, stating: “‘Deserves’ is a complicated word.
“There are so many people who deserve to have this kind of life who don’t, but I think I’m comfortable with not deserving it and doing it anyway. And I know that my not doing it wouldn’t help anyone.
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“I saw two paths when I was first starting, and one of them was: change your name, get a nose job and go to open casting roles.
“It’s OK to be made fun of when you’re in rarefied air. It’s a lucky place to be. My relationships with my parents are really honest and positive, and that supersedes anything anyone can say about it.”
Hawke was most recenty seen in Wildcat, a film about Flannery O’Connor directed by her father, Ethan.