“I’m so grateful that people fell in love with Robin.”
Maya Hawke as Robin in Stranger Things season 3
Photo Credit: Netflix
One of the sweetest and most unexpected moments of Stranger Things season 3 — which released earlier in July on Netflix — was Maya Hawke's new character Robin Buckley revealing that she is a lesbian. In the penultimate episode of the season, Robin came out to her Scoops Ahoy colleague and admirer Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), who had been nudged in the direction over the course of Stranger Things 3 by his friend Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo). And in a new interview, Hawke has said that she is “so grateful that people fell in love with Robin” and hopes that it helps them love LGBTQ people in their own lives.
“I loved Robin, and I gave her everything I had, and I tried to make her as human and multidimensional as I could, and I wanted people to love her,” Hawke told Variety at the premiere for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in which she has a minor role. “But honestly when you bring a new character onto a TV show that is already so beloved [in Stranger Things], it's very rare that it's received that well… and I'm so grateful that people fell in love with Robin the way that I did.”
“Sometimes we can have empathy for people on screen that we wouldn't normally have empathy for in real life,” Hawke added, talking about the Stranger Things season 3, episode 7 scene in which she reveals to Steve that she didn't have a crush on him but another girl, continuing a conversation they had in a previous episode under the influence of drugs in the Starcourt Mall basement. “If I can hope for anything it's that maybe some people fell in love with Robin and that helped them fall in love with girls who love girls and boys who love boys,” she said.
Hawke also noted that Robin's sexuality wasn't nailed down until midway through the season, as she had ongoing conversations with the Stranger Things creators and showrunners, the Duffer Brothers: “It was kind of a collaborative conversation, and I'm really, really happy with the way that it went.”
Stranger Things season 3 is streaming on Netflix.
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