Sadie Sink

Sadie Elizabeth Sink was born on April 16, 2002, in Brenham, Texas, to Lori Sink, a math teacher, and Casey Sink, a football coach. She has three older brothers, Mitchell, Caleb, and Spencer, and a younger sister, Jacey, who later portrayed younger versions of Sink's characters in Stranger Things season three and The Whale. Though her family was largely sports-oriented, Sink and her brother Mitchell gravitated toward the performing arts, frequently watching Broadway productions and Tony Award performances and recreating scenes from High School Musical. Her mother enrolled her in acting classes in Houston at age seven, and Sink made her first stage appearance that same year in a community theater production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever in Brenham. At eight, she took on a leading role in a local staging of The Secret Garden, an experience she credited with motivating her to pursue a professional career. In 2012, her family relocated to New Jersey to support that pursuit, and Sink began homeschooling during that period, returning to regular school after completing her run in The Audience in 2015.

Before her Broadway debut, Sink was performing regularly at Theater Under the Stars by age nine, appearing in a production of White Christmas in 2011 and portraying the title character in Annie in 2012. That same year, she was cast in the Broadway revival of Annie, initially serving as a standby from October 2012 through July 2013 for the roles of Annie, Tessie, Duffy, July, and Pepper. Following the departure of Lilla Crawford in late July 2013, Sink and Taylor Richardson began alternating between the roles of Annie and Duffy. Director James Lapine noted that both performers were "such unique young actresses" that he chose to have them share the role rather than select one over the other. Sink remained with the production through its final performance in January 2014, performing eight times a week throughout her run. She described the experience as instilling discipline and confirmed it solidified her commitment to acting.

During her time in Annie, Sink made her television debut in 2013 with a guest appearance on the spy drama The Americans, which sparked her interest in film work. She also appeared in a 2014 episode of Blue Bloods and starred in the NBC series American Odyssey in 2015, which was canceled after one season. That same year, she returned to Broadway in The Audience, playing the young Queen Elizabeth II alongside Helen Mirren, who portrayed the adult monarch. Sink later described her relationship with acting as having "really shifted" after observing Mirren's approach on stage. Reviews in USA Today and The New York Times characterized her performance as "touching" and "very good," respectively. She made her film debut the following year in the biographical sports drama Chuck (2016).

Sink's screen breakthrough came with the Netflix science fiction series Stranger Things, which she joined in its second season after auditioning in September 2016 to play Maxine "Max" Mayfield. The casting directors initially considered her too old for the role, but she attended four callbacks, including a chemistry read with cast members Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin. Director Matt Duffer described casting her as "a bit of a no-brainer" based on her chemistry with her co-stars. Sink continued in the role across subsequent seasons, earning particular critical acclaim for her work in the fourth season, released in two parts in May and July 2022. Rolling Stone described her performance as "poignant and emotionally raw," and she won the Hollywood Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Streaming Series, Drama, for that season. She also received a Saturn Award nomination for Performance by a Younger Actor. Stranger Things ran from 2017 to 2025.

Beyond the series, Sink appeared in Fear Street Part Two: 1978 and Fear Street Part Three: 1666, both released in 2021, playing Ziggy Berman and Constance across the two films. That same year, she starred opposite Dylan O'Brien in All Too Well: The Short Film, written and directed by Taylor Swift. In 2022, she took on a leading role in Darren Aronofsky's psychological drama The Whale, for which she received a nomination for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer. Her younger sister Jacey appeared in the film portraying a younger version of her character.

Sink returned to Broadway in 2025 in John Proctor Is the Villain, a role that earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play. The nomination marked a significant return to the stage more than a decade after her earlier Broadway credits in Annie and The Audience.