'It's a nice place to be': Maya Hawke opens up about nepotism claims, admits parents Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke's names propelled career

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Maya Hawke, the daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, has come to accept the term “nepo baby” while admitting she is “comfortable with not deserving it and doing it anyway."

The ‘Stranger Things’ star, 25, has revealed her views on her Hollywood success, acknowledging she has received an advantage because of her famous parents’ standing in showbiz.

Maya Hawke opens up about ‘nepo baby’ privilege

Maya recently opened up about her path to Hollywood in a recent interview with Times of London where she reflected on the theory of who deserves to be in Hollywood.

Reflecting on her success, Maya said, “‘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.”

In a candid confession, she explained, “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.”

However, she chose to embrace her pedigree and said it was “comfortable” to choose the second one, even if it led to nepotism jokes.

The ‘Wildcat’ star added, “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,” said the daughter of the ‘Dead Poets Society’ star and the ‘Pulp Fiction’ actress.

Maya further revisited the casting controversy regarding her role in ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’, which established her as an actress in the film industry.

She had to audition for that role. “I got an audition for the project through the normal channels through my agents,” said Maya at the time.

She added, “I did an audition in my bedroom with my dad. We sent in the tape to Quentin and I got a callback,” referring to the director of the multi-starrer Quentin Tarantino.

Maya opened up about the incessant mocking she received for the claim, saying, “I’ve been wildly made fun of for this clip when I said, on the red carpet, that I auditioned.”

However, she cleared the air that nepotism indeed played a role in her getting the role, saying, “I never meant to imply that I didn’t get the part for nepotistic reasons — I think I totally did.”

Jamie Lee Curtis previously acknowledged favoritism in Hollywood

Hawke is not the only starlet to publicly accept Hollywood’s alleged nepotism. Previously in 2019, actress Jamie Lee Curtis admitted that her family name helped her shape a career in Hollywood.

The ‘Halloween’ star is the daughter of Hollywood’s Golden Age stars Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. 

During an interview with The New Yorker in December 2019, the 65-year-old actress shared, “It’s important for me, given that I’m this bougie princess from Los Angeles — even if I claim I worked hard, I’ve never really worked hard a day in my life," per Us Weekly.

She, however, continued, "I wrote a short story once that was semi-autobiographical, which I’ll never publish, a novella actually - the child in the story was raised in New York with famous parents. The father in that story wrote an autobiography, titled Access of Kings.”

She explained, “It was that idea that, when you’re famous, you get this incredible access, you get opportunities to see things that other people don’t get to see, you get ease of access everywhere you go. All of that is a great, lovely benefit to the part that you give up, which is your privacy. So it’s a balance."