Sadie Sink Doesn’t Need to Prove Anything to Anyone

Sadie Sink Doesn't Need to Prove Anything to Anyone—Except Herself Story By Photograph by PhilipDaniel Ducasse; Styling by Gabriella KarefaJohnson, Chelsey SanchezAugust 19, 2025 at 6:04 AM Sadie Sink Stretches Her Limits PHILIPDANIEL DUCASSE "Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenu...

- - Sadie Sink Doesn't Need to Prove Anything to Anyone—Except Herself

Story By Photograph by Philip-Daniel Ducasse; Styling by Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, Chelsey SanchezAugust 19, 2025 at 6:04 AM

Sadie Sink Stretches Her Limits PHILIP-DANIEL DUCASSE

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."

Dress, Prada. Serpenti Viper and B.zero1 rings, Bulgari. PHILIP-DANIEL DUCASSE

Around the same time that Sadie Sink was wrapping up the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, the 23-year-old found herself asking a question that most people would reserve for a midlife crisis: Do I still want to do this?

"This," for Sink, meant acting—the job that, at that point, she had been doing for most of her life. While she gained national fame for her role as Maxine "Max" Mayfield in the supernatural Netflix saga, Sink has been working on her craft since she was 10 years old. She made her Broadway debut at that age in a revival of Annie; a few years later, she returned to Broadway for The Audience, in which she acted opposite Academy Award winner Helen Mirren. Her induction into the Stranger Things cast in 2017 was simply confirmation of all her accumulated promise and potential. Nearly a decade later, Sink wasn't so sure that that was enough.

"When you choose something at such an early age and actually get to act on it, then that is the blessing," Sink says. "But also, in a way, you've reached a point where you're like, Well, do I still want this? Am I good at this? Am I doing the right thing?"

Sadie Sink in John Proctor is the Villain, 2025. Julieta Cervantes

It's hard to fathom how someone with that much raw talent and good fortune might question the trajectory of her career—especially now that she's just finished another acclaimed theatrical role, this time for the Broadway play John Proctor Is the Villain. As she begins to calculate her next steps outside of the Netflix bubble, Sink is doing what few other actors her age have accomplished: establishing her ability to lead a lucrative commercial franchise while simultaneously pursuing projects that feed her artistic appetite. It's a precious position to be in. In a lot of ways, she has been treading that dichotomy all along.

During her eight-year run as Max, Sink has also starred in the 2021 Fear Street horror trilogy, based on R.L. Stine's best-selling book series; the 2024 thriller A Sacrifice, adapted from Nicholas Hogg's novel Tokyo; and the 2025 drama O'Dessa, an ambitious rock musical set in a postapocalyptic world. She earned critical acclaim for her supporting role in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale, which ultimately won two Oscars in 2023. Taylor Swift sought her out, specifically, to play a leading role in the short-film adaptation of her hit song "All Too Well."

"It doesn't matter how many projects you do, how many good reviews you get, how many people tell you you're amazing," Sink continues. "Everyone still reaches that point where there is always going to be self-doubt. And I had a lot of that last year, for whatever reason."

From Left: Amalia Yoo, Morgan Scott, Sadie Sink, Fina Strazza, Nihar Duvvuri, and Hagan Oliveras in John Proctor is the Villain, 2025. Julieta Cervantes

Sink and I connect over the phone on a balmy June afternoon, during a brief window of free time she has between performances of John Proctor Is the Villain. The stage play, written by Kimberly Belflower and directed by Danya Taymor, follows a group of high school juniors studying Arthur Miller's The Crucible in the delicate early days of the #MeToo movement. It also marks Sink's homecoming to Broadway after 10 long years.

"Going back to theater was so important, not only to prove to myself that I could do it, but also to feel like an actor again," Sink says. "I was able to touch base with the kid in me that loved acting and felt this weird pull toward it. And I know that that is still true today, and it's okay that I don't know how to do anything else right now, because this is all I need to do."

Her performance as Shelby Holcomb, a teen girl bearing the weight of a secret no child should hold, rightfully earned Sink her first-ever Tony nomination—one of seven that the production reaped. Although she departed the production in July, Sink, who was instrumental in securing John Proctor its Broadway run, won't be leaving Shelby's story behind any time soon. This summer, Universal officially greenlit a film adaptation of the play, with Sink in the driver's seat as an executive producer.

Taymor first met Sink to talk through the script on a Zoom call back in 2023. Sink's passion was clear from the start. "I found her so curious, grounded, and whip-smart," Taymor recalls. "I could tell what a powerful, ego-less artist she was, even from that first Zoom call."

Sadie Sink and Caleb McLaughlin in Stranger Things season 5. Netflix

Indeed, Sink commands the stage as Shelby, challenging the audience to understand what it means to be a girl who isn't believed. As Shelby and her friends dig deeper into The Crucible, ultimately relating more to the women of the play than its male protagonist, Sink's performance veers from stinging vulnerability to unbridled rage. "Just when you think Sadie has gone as deep as any actor can go," Taymor adds, "she goes deeper."

Going deeper on Broadway, as it turns out, was just what Sink needed to remind her what she's capable of. "You can work on a scene and get what the director wants and feel happy with it, but to do a whole play—to go through your character's whole arc in one go, the physicality of it, the mental and emotional stamina, the focus that it requires—I think that wasn't really a muscle that I'd stretched to that extent," she says. "The biggest challenge was just the vulnerability factor, because when you're on a set, it's closed off. You're with people that you see every day and that you trust. With this, you're in front of your audience, so it's hard to shed any of your own insecurities and just become a vessel for the character when you have a thousand people looking at you."

Her biggest takeaway? "Whether the end result is good or bad or neutral, it doesn't matter, because whatever I do as an actor, I am still learning through everything, through every character that I play."

While Sink has grown up onscreen in front of millions of Stranger Things fans, her transition into the next chapter of her life and career has gone surprisingly smoothly. "I get very, very emotional when I have to leave a character. For Max, I was like, Oh, this is going to absolutely destroy me," Sink reflects. "But for some reason, it didn't really feel like I was saying goodbye to her at all." The reality is that she might never have to say goodbye to Max—not really, especially when the characters of Stranger Things are, in essence, ubiquitous, saturating pop culture in the way that they have for the past nine years. Sink says her own identity is practically inseparable from Max's. "So much of me is Max," she explains. "She was created when I was 14 years old. I poured so much of myself into her."

Sadie Sink attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards, 2025. Getty Images

After Stranger Things airs its series finale this December, fans can look forward to Sink getting back in front of the camera opposite Tom Holland in the next Spider-Man installment—though she remains tight-lipped about her involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe when I pitifully attempt to sneak in a quick question.

As for how she's coping with questions of artistic uncertainty these days? The questions may still come, but the answers don't necessarily scare her anymore. "If I were to go out there and not feel like an amateur sometimes, if I just felt fully confident in what I was doing and thought that every line that exited my mouth was pure perfection, that would be a bad sign," she says. "The self-doubt to begin with was a sign for me. It showed that I actually really, really cared."

Hair: Edward Lampley for Bumble and Bumble; makeup: Kennedy for Dior Beauty; manicures: Mayumi Abuku for Chanel; casting: Anita Bitton at The Establishment; production: Day Int.; set design: Bette Adams

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