The Tamesis
Sadie Sink – 23-year-old actress who rose to fame after joining the cast of Netflix stranger things In Season 2 – I haven’t lived in a face-up world since 2017.
“There is life in the meantime stranger thing There will be life in the future stranger thing. That was my childhood. Things are going to be very different,” she says, speaking to me via Zoom from her parents’ home in New Jersey, a bittersweet smile on her face.
The show’s finale arrives on New Year’s Eve, capping off a series that saw Zink and her costars—including Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo and Millie Bobby Brown—grow from unknown teenagers to globally recognized young adults. “None of this is a normal way to grow up, but what makes it manageable is that we’re all going through this together,” she continued. “Having people understand it without having to explain it — that’s priceless.”
stranger things is Netflix’s biggest series yet: a record-breaking nine-and-a-half-year series that follows a ragtag group of kids in 1980s Midwestern suburbs as they battle inexplicable yet relatable forces. (Anyone who grew up before the Internet probably remembers finding and fighting their childhood monsters in the woods.) The giant, founded by brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, has generated billions of dollars in peripheral revenue from its merchandise and pop-up theme parks; attracted legions of fans across generations; and tapped into a nostalgia that feels especially poignant and gripping in our hyper-digital world.
Zink’s calm, sensitive performance as the introverted Max Mayfield made her a fan favorite: Her arc and presence in Season 4 were so powerful that Kate Bush’s 1985 song “Run Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” (which served as a kind of aural MacGuffin in Max’s story) re-entered the 2022 pop charts.
“Anytime a young girl sees herself in Max … it’s special,” Zink said. “I’ve met kids who will say things as small as ‘I started skateboarding because of her’ to as big as ‘I’m seen because of her.’ My mom is a teacher, and she told me that a student in another class, a nine-year-old, wrote and said if she could meet any actress, it would be me. Things like that always feel surreal. It’s a reminder of how many people the show has attracted, especially younger viewers. I’m proud to be a part of something that celebrates misfit kids who are different but still are heroes.”
