‘Do Revenge’ Star Maya Hawke on the Messiness of High School: ‘There’s So Much Forgiveness Built Into It’

thewrap.com:

“Do Revenge” is nothing short of central and dynamic, but she feels the messiness of her character Eleanor reflects the realities of teen life in high school.In the film, which was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” (1951), Drea Torres (Camila Mendes) and Eleanor Levetan (Hawke) team up to ‘do each other’s revenge’ to their enemies after being wronged in cruel ways.

Drea’s ex-boyfriend Max leaks a steamy video that she made only for his viewing, and Eleanor looks to take down a girl who outed her at summer camp after spreading a rumor that Eleanor tried to hold her down and kiss her.“So many of the classic high school movies like ‘10 Things I Hate About You,’ for example, are inspired by older stories,” Hawke said in a phone interview with TheWrap, referring to the “Taming of the Shrew”-inspired ’90s teen comedy. “And I have seen ‘Strangers on a Train’ and I love it, but I think that a part of the genre that we’re playing into is this kind of taking an old folk tale and adapting it into a teen setting.”“Do Revenge” departs very swiftly from “Strangers on a Train” not just because of the high school, young adult setting, but due to the plot structure and a significant twist involving Eleanor’s character.“I often have this thing that I do, where in each part, I implant a little secret.

I always find that like, whether it’s songwriting or film, acting, or television, I like to kind of treat them like letters, and like some kind of secret communication to some chapter in my life or some version of myself or somebody in my life,” Hawke said.