Thanks to Stranger Things, Sink spent most of her teenage years in the spotlight. But underneath all the glitz and glam, she’s just your average 20-something who prefers baggy jeans to ball gowns.
Don’t get me started on Sadie Sink High School Musical. “You say the word and I can sing all the lyrics to ‘I Want It All’ from the third movie,” she laughs, describing her love of the iconic Disney Channel franchise and the characters Ryan and Sharpay Evans, played by Lucas Grabel. and Ashley Tisdale. “They are NOT villains!” she declares passionately, only half joking. (For the uninitiated, she’s referring to the first film, in which the Evans siblings try to stop Vanessa Hudgens’ Gabriella Montez and Zac Efron’s Troy Bolton from auditioning for the school musical.) “Sharpay put in the work! Where is the respect for seniority? But I could talk about this for hours.”
Actually, we’re only five minutes into our video chat, but here we are, already gossiping, smiling and laughing like two girls at a slumber party. She’s even dressed up for one, wearing a relaxed striped shirt with a messy bun and barely-there makeup as she sits cross-legged on a chair in an LA hotel room. And maybe it’s her young age of 20, or maybe it’s because I caught Sink on the loose after a whirlwind of press for season four Foreign things, but our conversation feels more intimate than most. This, I quickly discover, is rare for the usually guarded actor.
Growing up in Brenham, Texas, Sadie Sink and her four siblings—three brothers and one sister—were not allowed to watch many movies, but one they did get to enjoy was High School Musical (hence the fixation). “That really had a huge impact on me and started me and my brother Mitchell on our musical journey,” she shares. Case in point: The Sink siblings would do their own choreography for various songs from the movie and (according to her) force their family to watch them perform it. With two such avid music fans at home, their parents enrolled both Sink and her brother in local singing, acting and dancing classes, which led to them landing roles at a regional theater in Houston. “My mom took us to all of these things — not with the hope that we’d ever go to Broadway or anything like that, but because they were activities that we liked to do.”
As fate would have it, that’s exactly what happened next. Sinku was playing the title role in a local production of Eni when he learned that Broadway was looking for its own red-headed protagonist. After submitting an audition tape, Sink was initially cast as a student, but a few months later, she became a star. She was 11 years old at the time. At the age of 12, she was playing in The audience (written by crown‘s Peter Morgan) alongside Helen Mirren. “That’s when my relationship with acting changed,” Sink notes. “Working with some of the greatest minds in the industry taught me what acting is really about, and that’s when I decided that’s what I wanted to do.”
With that in mind, Sadie Sink began a natural transition from stage to screen. After moving to New Jersey with her family, she earned several guest spots on television series such as Americans and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. But that didn’t happen until she auditioned for the second season Foreign things that her world changed completely. Although casting directors were initially hesitant about Sink’s “old” age (she was 14 at the time!), she didn’t take no for an answer. “I just begged and begged them to give me more material to show them something fresh,” she explains, describing how “right” Max’s part was for her. The producers relented and called him in for a chemistry read with now co-stars Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin. The next day, she found out she was getting the part.
With the fifth and final season of Foreign things in her own way, Sink isn’t sure if she’s become more or less like her character, but she admits that they both tend to put up walls. “Max’s walls look very different from mine,” she says. “I don’t think I’m as cold as her, but I can be a bit emotionally unavailable sometimes.” Afterwards I seem to have seen a slightly less guarded Sadie Sink on my screen – one who is quick to share stories and laugh at her situation and herself. However, she’s still careful with her words – and who can blame her? After watching the media gobble up other young female celebrities — like Britney Spears, Taylor Swift and even her co-star Millie Bobby Brown — Sink is smart to be careful.
Speaking of Swift, Sink’s opportunity to work with the singer-songwriter Very Good: The Short Film in 2021 could not have come at a better time. “I’m so grateful that she was able to give me such good advice in terms of navigating the industry as a young person and life in general,” Sink says with a smile. What exactly did Swift share? Well, that’s a secret Sink is keeping to herself, though it’s clear from her expression that her friendship with Swift is special and full of mutual admiration. (Swift reportedly hand-picked Sink for the role.) “As a director, she’s every bit as amazing as you’d think she would be,” Sink enthuses. “She’s a superpower and can do anything she likes.”
Looking back, Sink is still processing her teenage years spent in the spotlight. “It is such a strange and specific situation that Foreign things The cast and I are all in because the world knows who our characters are, but we’re still trying to figure out who we are as people,” she says thoughtfully. “I think being in the industry accelerates you and you mature faster. But for the most part, it’s just a lot of fun because the cast is going through it all together.”
To get her “typical teenage fix,” Sink finds that she’ll often condense multiple experiences, such as a high school party or a late-night dinner party, into one weekend and treat them as the boxes in the task list are hidden. . But the one that got away? Living it High school musical fantasy. “I would absolutely love to be in a school production with kids my age,” she says wistfully.
Although most people would happily trade their homemade suits for red carpet couture, Sink admits she feels more comfortable in baggy jeans and a T-shirt than a bourgeois ball gown. “In a way, the clothing I wear in my personal life feels like a kind of armor,” she shares, referring to the power suit and edgy separates she’s been rocking lately. “I feel more like myself when I’m not dressed.” That said, her love of blazers transcends celebrities and the real-life Sadie. “I’ll wear them until the day I die,” she laughs.
That’s the thing with Sadie Sink. As much as she’s focused on continuing to build her career, with the 2021 horror franchise The path of fearthe last season of Foreign things and Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming psychological drama Whale (due out later this year) and trying to navigate a complicated relationship with the fame that follows, she’s still just a young woman trying to find herself as she graduates from her teenage years to her 20s her. Whether she takes her cues from a grown-up Taylor Swift or the fictional and fairy-tale Sharpay, or a bit of both, it’s clear that Sadie Sink is going to call the shots. And that’s exactly how it should be. “Honestly, my life has felt a bit like a coming-of-age movie,” she reveals. We will be here, waiting for the sequel.
Photo by ROYAL GILBERT. Creative direction and styling by GEORGE ANTONOPULOS. Styling by KAREN CLARKSON. Hair from TOMMY KOVA FOR THE TRACEY MATTINGLY AGENCY. Makeup and nails from QUINN MURPHY FOR THE WALL GROUP. Production: NALIMA TOURS. Fashion assistants: MOLLY ELLISON AND AMY HOLDEN-BROWN.
