Maya is the cover star of Cultured magazine’s summer Performance Review issue! For the article, Maya chatted with Stranger Things co-star Sadie Sink.

Stranger Things‘s Maya Hawke Finds Her Voice

CULTURED – While we were all anxiously awaiting the release of the fourth season of Netflix’s bingeable classic Stranger Things during its pandemic-length hiatus, recent Julliard School dropout Maya Hawke—who also happens to be one of the show’s most beloved leading women, not to mention Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke’s daughter—got up to something a little different: she recorded her second album, out this September, with 13 new tracks that take equal inspiration from the poetry of John Donne, an ancient Egyptian sculpture of a blue hippopotamus in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the “ridiculousness of male actors” everywhere. Here, she catches up with fellow costar Sadie Sink, to discuss her irreverent character’s emotional arc, her own creative process, defensive mechanisms, and portraying multi-dimensional women on screen.

Cultured Magazine: How are you both feeling about the release of Stranger Things?

Maya Hawke: What I’m most excited for the audience to see is Sadie’s performance. It’s what this show has been missing, in my opinion, it’s the emotional core. To see the trauma and the events that have happened to all of these kids through all these seasons, really start to register with them emotionally. Sadie does such a beautiful job of being the heart of the show and taking all those feelings in.

Sadie Sink: They’re good writers.

MH: We’re lucky.

SS: Very, very lucky. I’m excited for Joe Quinn.

MH: Me too. The cast members are piling on but when you watch it, each person makes sense. You were exactly what the show needed in season three and continue to be the breath of fresh air.

SS: Big casts can get a bad rap for too many storylines but life has a lot of storylines. It has that realistic feeling of new people being introduced. Your world gets bigger as you get older, and it’s aging with its kids that way.
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