Sadie Sink has been steadily building a fanbase since she joined the season two cast of Stranger Things in 2017, playing tomboy Max Mayfield.
Over the past couple of years the actor has gone from rising star (she was just 15-years-old when she joined the show) to big celebrity, with 16.3 million Instagram followers, several major brand campaigns under her belt (last year it was Givenchy lipstick), an acting role in a ten-minute Taylor Swift music video, plus some gigs in other films (such as Eli and The Glass Castle).
Then recently Sink’s name has been back on everyone’s lips as Stranger Things returned for its fourth season. It’s been a long time coming, too – season three premiered back in summer 2019.
But you’d be forgiven if you haven’t been keeping up. After all, there are quite a few super-talented young actors on the scene. So, to bring you up to speed, here’s everything you need to know about Sadie Sink.
What catapulted Sink into stardom?
Sink has been acting for a while now. She started off on Broadway, playing Annie in the musical Annie in 2012. She also played opposite Helen Mirren of all people, in The Audience, a play about Queen Elizabeth II.
But, of course, it was Stranger Things that introduced Sink to the wider world.
What happened with the Taylor Swift video?
Pop culture enthusiasts had a meltdown when Taylor Swift released the music video All Too Well: The Short Film in November 2021.
Firstly, for Swift fans it was an important moment because the singer had written and directed the video. It accompanyed the rerecording of her 2012 song All Too Well which was released as part of the album Red (Taylor’s version) in November. Swift has been slowly remaking her old albums in an attempt to regain ownership over her music after her masters were sold.
The 15-minute film was also rumoured to be about the 2010 relationship between Jake Gyllenhaal and Swift. The supposed subject matter created a media fire storm provoking Gyllenhaal to actually speak about it, saying “It has nothing to do with me. It’s about her relationship with her fans. It is her expression.”
Then, if that wasn’t enough, Sink and Dylan O’Brien (Teen Wolf, The Maze Runner) were cast as the starring couple, adding layer upon layer of pop-culturedom to the video release. Sink was already famous, but her role in the film turned Swift’s constantly scorching spotlight right towards the actor.
Who compared Sink to Meryl Street?
There can’t be many better compliments fo a young actor (or any actor actually) than being compared to three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep. And then it can’t get much better than the words coming out of Winona Ryder’s mouth.
Ryder, who plays single mother Joyce Byers in Stranger Things, gushed to E! News about the young actor, saying, “Sadie is like Liv Ullmann. She’s going to be like Meryl Streep.” That has to have felt pretty good.
Where else might you have seen her?
As well as the early stints on Broadway, and her major role in Stranger Things, Sink has been keeping busy. She’s acted in 2017’s The Glass Castle, 2019’s Eli and more recently in Netflix’s Fear Street Part Two: 1978 and Fear Street Part Three: 1666 – both of which were released in 2021.
Upcoming projects include The Whale, a psychological drama by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Mother!) and Dear Zoe, directed by Gren Wells (The Road Within).
Plus Sink has been doing the fashion rounds: she modelled for Miu Miu in 2017, Kate Spade in 2019, Givenchy last year and she was in Aspen celebrating the opening of Chanel’s Colorado store in February.
