Ethan Hawke, who directs daughter Maya Hawke in Wildcat, says he’s not embarrassed by his nepo baby, even as she says she has “moments of insecurity” about her famous family, which she describes as “boring, indie Kardashians.”
Ethan Hawke and Maya Hawke have been forging their own paths in the entertainment industry, but they’ve come together for their latest project, Wildcats. Ethan directs “nepo baby” Maya in the film, with both acknowledging the complexity and reality of the situation.
The father-daughter duo sat down in an interview with Variety, permitted under a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement, to talk about their new film, nepotism, sex scenes and even dad’s awkward, viral Rihanna flirting moment. “Famiiy shame” or “family pride?”
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Obviously, the Stranger Things star stepping out into a leading role in a feature film directed by her dad is going to bring back up the ongoing “nepo baby” debate. While both actors own the moniker, they seem to wear it a little differently.
“Put simply, I’m a nepo dad!” Ethan told Variety. “I’m not embarrassed about it.”
The issue is a little more nuanced for Maya, obviously, considering she would be the one people say has an unfair advantage and a leg up in the industry. Maya acknowledges both of these things.
She said that she had “moments of insecurity” about the issue while filming with her famous father, “but the internet doesn’t have a lot of nuances. My dad has been a massive teacher for me, and we want to work together. We like being with each other.”
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“If someone wants to criticize us for working together, that’s totally fair,” Ethan added. “You have to let people have their opinion. You just have to try to do a good job when you’re onstage.”
As noted by Us Weekly, Maya has previously spoken about the advantages her famous folks have given her — she is the daughter of Ethan and Uma Thurman. She told Rolling Stone in 2022 that she knows she’ll “get chances for free” due to her lineage, but she still has “to keep working and do a good job.”
“If you do a bad job, the chances will stop,” she explained. “That’s my ethos.”
Don’t expect the family to take their fame to the small screen, though, as it doesn’t sound like Maya thinks they have what it takes. In the Variety chat, she described them as the “boring, Indie Kardashians.” Ethan and Uma were married from 1998 to 2005 and also share son Levon.
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She also teased her father about a viral incident nearly a decade older, when Ethan was caught on film switching seats with Levon at the 2015 NBA All-Star Game so he could chat up Rihanna.
“I’ve been caught openly flirting with Rihanna,” Ethan laughed in the new interview, to which his daughter quickly corrected him, “openly trying to flirt.” Nevertheless, when he laughed that it’s “been a family shame,” Maya insisted “it’s family pride.” She’s proud of him for going for it, even if it didn’t work out.
In their latest project, Maya portrays Flanner O’Connor in Wildcat. She takes on a myriad of roles in the film, including O’Connor and half a dozen other characters from her short stories. Some of those character stories include sex scenes.
While the “nepo baby” element might make that seem weird to some, Ethan said he had no issues directing his daughter in those intimate encounters. In fact, it was her scene partners he was more concerned about.
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“We needed to take care of Rafael [Casal] and Cooper [Hoffman],” Ethan said. “I think it was weird for them. We were so comfortable with it. I couldn’t care less.”
Echoing her father’s lack of concern about the scenes, Maya noted that there were intimacy coordinators on set for the guys, “so that they felt safe and comfortable and not like they were being spied on–“
“–by some creepy dad,” Ethan interjected.
The role was exciting for both Hawkes because, as Ethan noted, “young actresses very rarely get that opportunity to be brilliant, complicated, mean, sexual, asexual. Making movies about imperfect women is hard.”
Written, directed and produced by Ethan Hawke, Maya Hawke stars in and is an executive producer on Wildcat. The Flannery O’Connor biopic had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on September 1.
