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Last week, Stranger Things and Do Revenge star, Maya Hawke made headlines after she revealed one of the biggest and worst ways that Hollywood is changing. The actress and daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke slammed casting directors and production companies for finding and seeking out talent based solely on Instagram followers. As she explained to Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast, she had been thinking about deleting her own social media accounts only to be told that production companies are beginning to base their funding of projects off the ensemble’s joint follower count. Of course, this isn’t always the case, but Hawke’s description of the current inner-workings of the industry painted a bleak picture of who will get their projects made moving forward and whose work will end up on the cutting room floor.
Hawke’s words certainly raised alarm bells, especially with the onslaught of fresh titles coming out from relatively unknown writers and directors who are bringing something completely different to viewers. Case in point is last year’s breakaway Netflix hit, Baby Reindeer, which pushed Richard Gadd, Jessica Gunning, and other members of the team into the limelight, and won award after award during this year’s circuit.
Tonight, Gunning accepted her latest accolade for her performance as Martha, the unhinged stalker of Gadd’s Donny Dunn, taking home the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Limited Series. In a virtual pressroom, Collider’s Taylor Gates had the opportunity to chat with Gunning following her win and used the time to chat about her casting in the project as she was (at least in the U.S.) a relatively unknown name.
Shocked to hear that casting directors have turned to social media to find their performers, Gunning said,
“I’ve not heard that, and I’m absolutely scuppered if that’s true cos I’m not on any social media. So, oh no, [Laughs] I’ll never work again. Oh, heck.”
Recognizing that her extreme talent came with a brush of luck for her casting in Baby Reindeer, Gunning continued,
“No, I think I’m very lucky and fortunate that Richard [Gadd] and Weronika [Tofilska] and Josephine [Bornebusch] and all of the Netflix and Clarkenwell Films team took a chance on me. You know, I suppose I was relatively unknown, especially over here. I’ve worked in the UK now for about 17 years, but it’s always been kind of character parts and smaller things here and there, so I guess it was a bit of a gamble casting somebody, I suppose, unknown, who doesn’t have a following. But the story is so incredible and Richard’s script is so incredible.”
Jessica Gunning Remains Hopeful About the Future
Despite this upheaval in the way actors are chosen for their parts, Gunning believes that — above all else — creativity, talent, and story will win out, adding,
“But I think that in the future, I think the art will win out, and I think audiences, as Baby Reindeer shows, are ready to watch complicated nuanced stories. They don’t necessarily always want to see people who have billions of followers online. They want to see true life reflected on screen, and I think that Baby Reindeer is a really good example of that. So hopefully more stuff like that will be made. Yeah, fingers crossed. Or I’m never going to work again.”
Baby Reindeer is now streaming on Netflix.
Baby Reindeer
- Release Date
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2024 – 2023
- Directors
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Weronika Tofilska, Josephine Bornebusch
- Writers
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Richard Gadd
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Jessica Gunning
Martha Scott
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