Most of us have the option of deleting our social media profiles whenever we want. Seeing an overwhelming amount of negative content? Delete. Need a break to focus on real-world stuff? Bye. But not everyone has that luxury.
For Maya Hawke, she says she has wanted to delete her Instagram account, but she hasn’t been able to because, unfortunately, in this day and age, it could be the reason she doesn’t get cast in a film role.
Maya made the confession this week while appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz.
“The line between actor and celebrity has gotten extremely blurry,” Maya said. “What I always wanted to be is an actor where the work is what the draw is, not the personhood. But the industry keeps changing, and you have to change with it and understand that all of these things are getting blurred.”
One of those changes is the value that Hollywood places on internet stardom over talent, which Maya called really “difficult.” She said, “It’s like, I don’t care about Instagram. Instagram sucks. ‘Right, but just so you know, if you have over this many followers you can get the movie funded.’ Well, I wanna make the movie so…it’s a really confusing line to walk.”
It’s a conversation she says she’s had on numerous occasions at this point. “I’ve talked to so many smart directors about how I’m gonna delete my Instagram, and they’re like, ‘Just so you know, when I’m casting a movie with some producers, they hand me a sheet with the amount of collective followers I have to get of the cast that I cast so if you delete your Instagram, and I lose those followers, understand that these are the kinds of people I need to cast around you.”
“It’s confusing,” Maya added.