Sadie Sink Reveals She Almost Didn’t Get Cast As Max On “Stranger Things”
Can you imagine any other actress in the heartbreaking sequence in Stranger Things’ Episode 4? We sure can’t! That nearly was the case, as revealed by Sadie Sink who portrays Max Mayfield.
But, just like her on-screen character, Sadie Sink is a fighter. The now 20-year-old actress recalls a time when she almost didn’t get the role of Max in Netflix’s Stranger Things because the producers thought she was “too old” for the role.
Even though she was only 14 at the time, the producers were hesitant to cast her as Max because they were afraid she’d be too old for the character’s age in season two. “I just begged and pleaded with them to give me more material, so I could show them something fresh,” Sink said in a recent interview with Fashion.
Did this deter her from trying? Absolutely not. She remembers feeling how “right” playing the part of Max felt to her. It pushed her to “beg and plead” the producers to give her another chance to prove herself. Surprisingly, they obliged and set up a chemistry read for her with Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin) and Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas).
Little did Sink know, this simple request actually caused her to land the role. She fit right into the dynamic of the group. And the very next day, she found out that she had been cast as Max — the mysterious new kid at Hawkin’s High. It’s safe to say that Sink’s portrayal of Max has become as iconic as the show itself.
But this isn’t the first role she’s aced. At only 10 years old, she was cast as the understudy for a major Broadway production of Annie. And it only took a few months before she went from being the understudy to the star.
Sink reveals to Fashion how her love for musical theater and acting started. As young children, she and her siblings weren’t allowed to watch much TV, with a few exceptions. One of them was High School Musical, a 2006 Disney musical starring Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, and Ashley Tisdale.
“It really had a huge impact on me and started me and my brother Mitchell on our musical journey,” Sink states. They would put on family skits, dances, and performances, which encouraged her parents to enroll them in singing, dancing, and acting class from a very young age.
Despite her wild success and obvious talents, she is still just a 20-year-old trying to figure life out. Sink stated that she isn’t entirely used to being in the center of media attention.
“It’s such a weird and specific situation that the Strangers Things 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. I think being in the industry accelerates you and you mature faster. But for the most part, it’s just so fun because the cast is all going through it together.”
Kudos to her parents for noticing the star in her at such an early age! Perhaps this exposure to the arts at a formative time in her life made Sink the determined and talented actress she is today.
