The one movie Sadie Sink refused to watch: “I saw the trailer and flipped out”
Like a lot of people, I have very mixed feelings about the final season of Stranger Things, the geeky horror/sci-fi hit that had us all transfixed over Christmas and New Year, especially the last episode that rounded it off, which was great for an hour, and then absolutely abysmal for another hour after that. But one thing that can’t be argued about is how good Sadie Sink was in it.
Sink’s character Max Mayfield emerged throughout season four as a pivotal part of the show, perhaps the most important character of all aside from Eleven, and Sink was superb in the role; determined, passionate, believable, engrossing – all the things Noah Schnapp wasn’t as Will basically.
Maybe it’s not a surprise that Sink put in the performance she did in the last two seasons of Stranger Things, because she’s steadily been building damn-near universal acclaim and recognition for her work on both stage and screen over the past five years, being nominated for a Tony award thanks to a play called John Proctor is the Villain and gaining considerable plaudits for her supporting role in the Oscar-winning Brendan Fraser weepfest The Whale in 2022.
Plus, in between seasons of the Duffer Brothers show, Sink had also made three films in the Fear Street trilogy, the horror compendium based on a book series that spanned 300 years and was released week by week onto Netflix in 2021, and ellements of it were very similar in feel to Stranger Things, and again Sink excelled, with her lead role in the second movie, Fear Street Part Two: 1978, getting particular praise.
Given she has packed so much nail-bitingly spooky, horror-tinged material into a short career, then, it’s something of a surprise to know that Sink outright refused to watch the (again very similar in tone to Stranger Things) It reboots from 2017 and 2019 starring her mate Finn Wolfhard.
The films featured Bill Skarsgard as the devilish clown Pennywise and took things even further than the admittedly terrifying Tim Curry did back in the original 1990 Stephen King adaptation, as the much-maligned kids of Derry attempted to avoid having their limbs chomped off by the psychotic, shapeshifting, sewer-dwelling circus performer.
Sink told Cosmopolitan: “No, I have not seen It, because I don’t like horror movies. I don’t mess with clowns or demons. Maybe one day I’ll find the courage, and I’ll watch it, but right now it’s too scary. I saw the trailer, and I flipped out. I can’t do it!… When I watched [the first season of Stranger Things], I was pretty scared. At some points, I had to turn down the volume and cover my eyes or squint.”
Given she squared up several times to the frankly pant-soiling Vecna in the final two series of Stranger Things, it would appear she’s become a fair bit more battle-hardened since then, though, so perhaps we’ll see her do her thing in more horror projects in the future.
In the meantime, Sink is working on a filmed version of John Proctor is the Villain, and she’s already completed production on the latest web-slinging blockbuster Spiderman: Brand New Day alongside Tom Holland, Mark Ruffalo and Zendaya. The film will hit cinemas on July 31st of this year.
