Maya Hawke has revealed she “hated” every album she released before her new one, admitting she was burnt out, overwhelmed and unable to enjoy her own music until now.
The Stranger Things star, 27, spoke about her new record, Maitreya Corso, in a candid interview with the Los Angeles Times, saying she reached breaking point during previous album cycles (2020’s Blush, 2022’s Moss, and 2024’s Chaos Angel).
She said: “Every other album cycle I’ve done, by the time I got to the point where the album came out, I hated it.”
Maya – who worked on her latest LP with her musician spouse Christian Lee Hutson – explained that the pressure of promoting her work online left her drained.
She said: “I was just exhausted by the internet and by being public, and I wouldn’t want to post about it.”
Determined not to repeat the experience, she changed her entire approach to releasing music.
She said: “So I kind of tried to build this rollout where it could be enjoyable. And it seems to be working.”
The actress also said she has no interest in trying to become a pop star or chasing a mainstream sound.
She said: “I’m not a dancer – I don’t want to be a pop star and do dance moves.
“I don’t have a big Adele voice. And standing up there and just singing – I was like, I should be at a poetry reading.”
Maya said she made herself a promise before starting the new album: she would only write songs she could perform herself, without relying on spectacle.
She said: “If I made another record I would have to play guitar and write songs that I can play.”
The singer also admitted that finishing Stranger Things had a major impact on her mindset while making the new music.
The Netflix series, which she joined in 2019, had shaped her schedule and career for years.
Maya said the end of the show left her struggling to find her footing.
She said: “It’s changed the way I think about everything.
“Basically, from about four months before the show wrapped until a year after that, I was pretty freaked out. Because I didn’t know how I would be reborn out of it.”
Even when she felt frustrated by the show’s demands, Maya said it kept her grounded.
She said: “Even when I was resentful of being like, ‘I’m booked, and I can’t do this other thing that I want to do,’ the show was so grounding. I was really lost without it.”
As a result, she’s now rebuilding her life and career structure.
Maya explained: “I’m not freaked out about it anymore, but I’m in a renegotiation of the structure of what I want my life to look like.”