How Maya Hawke Related to Her “Inside Out 2” Character Anxiety: I Do Have 'Frets and Worries'

Maya Hawke's character Anxiety is among the new emotion-themed characters who join Pixar's 'Inside Out 2,' in theaters now

Maya Hawke is opening up about her own experiences with anxiety.

Hawke, 25, personifies the feeling in Pixar's latest movie Inside Out 2, in which her character Anxiety joins the host of emotions inside of a young girl's brain as she enters her teenage years and begins experiencing more complex emotions.

"I have anxiety, but I don’t have debilitating anxiety or medical grade anxiety," she said in a promotional interview for the movie shared on Disney's website. "I do have, like, a character within me that frets and worries, and so I was really able to play with that character that I’ve had in my own life, let her free, and give her free reign in this role, which was really cool."

Hawke's character joins other newcomers like Envy (Ayo Edibiri), Ennui (Adèle Excharpolous) and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) in the sequel to 2015's Inside Out, which introduced and made fan favorites of emotions like Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith) and Anger (Lewis Black).

"The little voice that I hear in my own head — the one that tells me to worry if my shoes are wrong or if I’m going be late to the airport or say the wrong thing — whatever that voice is that’s in my own head, I just tapped into that and let it come out of my mouth instead of keeping it in my brain," Hawke said of how she approached playing the character.

Related: Amy Poehler Pushed for Inside Out 2: ‘When Are You Going to Make Another One?’ (Exclusive)

The Stranger Things star and musician told Disney in the interview that she knew she had to play the role when she saw a drawing of the character during her audition process.

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"And it was incredibly rewarding to see the end result," she added. "In fact, some of the hand gestures and little movements that I did during the voice recording made it into the way the character was animated, which was just the coolest thing to see."

Related: Inside Out 2 Dethrones Dune: Part Two to Become Top Film of 2024 in Just 2 Weeks

The sequel also features the voices of Tony Hale and Liza Lapira (Crazy Stupid Love), who stepped in to voice characters originally portrayed by Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling. "This movie is just a force for good. It’s like a double rainbow," Hawke told Disney of the film, which grew into the highest-grossing release of 2024 in just its first two weeks at the domestic box office.

Inside Out 2 is in theaters now.

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