Maya Hawke – Mainstream #Venezia77

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Maya Hawke, actress of the film Mainstream.

The audience fell in love with her thanks to her participation in Stranger Things and now Maya Hawke is the protagonist of Gia Coppola’s second feature film, Mainstream, screening at the 77th Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti section. The actress and singer plays Frankie, a lonely and old fashioned girl desperately looking to find her place in the world and waiting to make a difference. Starring opposite Maya Hawke is Andrew Garfield playing a guy who is as lost as Frankie but in a magnetic and enigmatic way. Maya Hawke talks about her character focusing in particular on a scar on her character’s face: the key to her weakest point but also a soft way to connect with her and her past.

Mainstream: Just above Hollywood Boulevard lives Frankie, a young woman in her early 20s trying to navigate who she wants to be. With the death of Frankie’s father still lingering, Frankie knows she wants to do something of meaning but isn’t sure how and with the world in a current state of so much content and narcissism, it’s hard to not “compare and despair.” Stuck working as a bartender at a corner comedy club with her best friend Jake, Frankie questions what people today really value. It isn’t until she has a few cosmic run-ins with the mysterious Link, a man that seems to live life without rules that it inspires Frankie to lm him and upload his anti-mainstream rants onto the internet. Together, with the help of Jake, this unlikely band of outsiders rise to internet stardom. However, it’s hard to stay sane when the pressure of relevancy becomes important and new characters, like manager Mark, start making demands to bring in money. To make matters more complicated, Frankie and Link start getting romantically entwined. Frankie watches as Link becomes the epitome of everything he once denounced. It isn’t until Link publicly humiliates a young fan Isabel and Jake quits the team that Frankie really questions if she is also becoming the monster she helped create. A love story of being in love with someone who doesn’t love themselves set against the new emerging culture of today’s world.