Ethan and Maya Hawke Almost Abandoned ‘Wildcat’ After Discovering Flannery O’Connor’s Racist Letters

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Ethan and Maya Hawke Almost Abandoned ‘Wildcat’ After Discovering Flannery O’Connor’s Racist Letters

“Wildcat” director Ethan Hawke was introduced to the books of Flannery O’Connor by his mother, but it was his then-teenaged daughter, Maya, who introduced him to a more personal side of the writer. Maya Hawke, then a teenager looking for something original to recite for her Julliard audition, dug into O’Connor’s “Prayer Journal,” which captured the young, yet-to-be-published writer searching for meaning in journal entries she addressed to God. …