For millions of viewers, Sadie Sink will probably always be connected to a skateboard, a pair of headphones and the small fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana.

She joined Stranger Things in its second season as Max Mayfield, the confident new girl who immediately challenged the boys at the arcade and gradually became one of the show’s most important characters. What began as a supporting role eventually gave Sink some of the most emotionally demanding material in the Netflix series.

But her career didn’t begin anywhere near the Upside Down.

Years before she became an internationally recognized television star, Sink was performing for Broadway audiences. Her childhood fascination with High School Musical unexpectedly helped put her on that path, and acting soon became something the entire Sink family understood well.

Along the way, she appeared opposite actors including Woody Harrelson, developed a real-life friendship with Millie Bobby Brown, walked major fashion runways, embraced veganism and learned how to balance school with a career that was becoming increasingly difficult to treat as an ordinary after-school activity.

Here are some of the lesser-known stories behind Sadie Sink’s rise.

High School Musical Helped Start Everything

Sadie Sink’s acting career can be traced back to something many children of her generation understood perfectly: an obsession with High School Musical.

Growing up in Texas, Sink and her brother Mitchell became so enthusiastic about the Disney musical phenomenon that their mother eventually enrolled them in acting classes.

What began as childhood enthusiasm quickly became much more serious.

Sink started performing in community theater before eventually making the enormous jump to Broadway. In 2012, she became involved with the Broadway revival of Annie, initially playing orphan roles before taking turns performing the title character.

She was still a child, yet she was already working in one of the most demanding theatrical environments in the world.

More than a decade later, Sink would describe Broadway as an important part of her identity. In 2025, she returned to the stage in John Proctor Is the Villain and received a Tony Award nomination, bringing her career back to the place where much of it began.

She Knew Caleb McLaughlin Before Hawkins

Stranger Things wasn’t actually the first chapter in Sadie Sink’s relationship with Caleb McLaughlin.

The future Max and Lucas met years earlier while both were young Broadway performers.

While Sink was working on Annie, McLaughlin was appearing as Young Simba in The Lion King.

That means their eventual casting as two members of the Hawkins friend group came with an unusual bit of history already built in.

Years later, Stranger Things would turn Max and Lucas into one of the series’ central young relationships. But behind the scenes, Sink and McLaughlin had been moving through the same theatrical world long before Netflix brought them together again.

Stranger Things Wasn’t Her First Television Drama

Because Stranger Things became such an enormous cultural phenomenon, it’s easy to assume Max was Sink’s first significant television character.

It wasn’t.

Before Hawkins, she appeared in the NBC drama American Odyssey, playing Suzanne Ballard, the daughter of missing soldier Odelle Ballard.

The series followed the complicated consequences of Odelle’s disappearance after she was presumed dead, with Suzanne and her father gradually questioning whether the official version of events was true.

The show lasted only one season, but it gave Sink substantial dramatic television experience before the role that would make her famous.

She also appeared in The Glass Castle, the film adaptation of Jeannette Walls’ memoir, playing the younger version of Lori Walls alongside a cast that included Brie Larson and Woody Harrelson.

The movie arrived in 2017 — the same year audiences first saw Sink as Max in Stranger Things.

Her Friendship With Millie Bobby Brown Changed Stranger Things

When Max arrived in Hawkins, Eleven wasn’t exactly eager to welcome her.

Season two briefly positioned the girls as possible rivals, particularly because of Eleven’s feelings for Mike.

Real life was very different.

Sadie Sink and Millie Bobby Brown became close behind the scenes, and their genuine friendship helped influence the direction of their characters.

By Season 3, Max and Eleven were no longer competing over boys. Instead, viewers saw them shopping together, joking around, discussing relationships and developing an identity outside the male members of the group.

Sink later noted that the friendship gave the show an opportunity to focus on a bond between two girls after so much of the early series had revolved around the friendships among the boys.

Their connection wasn’t something created entirely for the cameras. Sink recalled meeting Brown and quickly spending time with her outside work, including attending an Adele concert together and later traveling with her.

Max Could Skate — Sadie Sink Couldn’t

Max Mayfield’s skateboard became one of her defining accessories when she entered Stranger Things.

There was just one problem.

Sadie Sink wasn’t a skateboarder.

When auditioning for the show at 14, Sink knew the character was supposed to be comfortable on a board. Rather than admit she had no experience, she tried to make herself sound slightly more qualified by mentioning that she had Rollerbladed.

The connection was fairly generous.

Sink later admitted that she could not actually skateboard when she landed the role.

Like many actors before her, she then had to learn enough of the skill to make the character convincing.

It worked. For viewers, the skateboard became so closely associated with Max that it is now difficult to imagine her introduction without it.

Fashion Became an Unexpected Second Career

Max Mayfield’s wardrobe is deliberately practical.

Her clothes fit an independent teenager growing up in the 1980s: sneakers, shorts, jackets and casual pieces that work equally well for riding a skateboard or running away from supernatural monsters.

Sadie Sink’s fashion life away from Hawkins became considerably more glamorous.

As her profile increased, she began working with major fashion houses and appeared in campaigns and shoots for brands including Kate Spade and Miu Miu.

She also walked in Undercover’s Fall 2018 show during Paris Fashion Week.

It was an interesting contrast.

On television, millions of people knew her as a tomboyish teenager battling creatures from another dimension.

In the fashion world, she was sitting front row, attending events and wearing designer pieces that couldn’t have looked further removed from Max’s Hawkins wardrobe.

Sink even experimented with incorporating higher-fashion pieces into her everyday clothes rather than saving them exclusively for red carpets.

Woody Harrelson Helped Influence a Major Lifestyle Change

Working on The Glass Castle affected Sink in a way that had nothing to do with acting.

Before making the movie, Sink had already stopped eating meat.

Her decision initially came partly from competition. After becoming interested in vegetarianism, a friend doubted she could stick with it.

Sink took that as a challenge.

Then she met Woody Harrelson.

Harrelson had long followed a vegan lifestyle, and while Sink spent time around him and his family during production, she saw firsthand that giving up animal products didn’t necessarily mean constantly feeling restricted.

The experience changed her perspective.

Sink eventually moved from vegetarianism to veganism, motivated both by animal welfare and environmental concerns.

Rather than presenting herself as someone interested in lecturing other people about food, she has generally described her approach in much more relaxed terms — encouraging people to think about where their food comes from and make whatever changes they realistically can.

Even members of her family became more open to plant-based eating after seeing her commitment to it.

Horror Became a Natural Home for Her

After battling Demogorgons and exploring the Upside Down, Sink had already accumulated more horror experience as a teenager than many actors acquire in an entire career.

So it wasn’t particularly surprising that more frightening projects followed.

She appeared in the Netflix horror film Eli and later became a major part of the streamer’s Fear Street trilogy, playing Ziggy Berman.

The latter project was especially well suited to someone coming from Stranger Things.

Like the Duffer brothers’ series, Fear Street mixed teenage characters, nostalgia, supernatural forces and plenty of danger.

But it pushed much further into slasher territory.

Sink’s performance also demonstrated something that would become increasingly important to her career: she could carry emotionally intense material without relying on Max Mayfield.

Stranger Things may have introduced her to an enormous audience, but horror quickly became another genre where she seemed completely at home.

Becoming Famous Didn’t Make School Disappear

Being a successful teenage actor comes with an inconvenient reality.

Homework doesn’t automatically go away because millions of people watch your television show.

As Sink’s schedule expanded to include acting, interviews, fashion work, travel and press events, traditional schooling became increasingly difficult to manage.

She eventually turned to online classes, giving her the flexibility to study around production schedules rather than trying to fit a rapidly growing career into an ordinary school day.

There was also SAT preparation and the normal uncertainty that comes with deciding what life after school should look like.

It was an unusual version of adolescence: one day might involve studying; another could involve filming a Netflix series or flying somewhere for a fashion shoot.

Sink has since described her education and upbringing as unconventional, but her family worked to keep her life grounded even as her career became anything but ordinary.

Acting Runs in the Sink Family

Sadie wasn’t the only Sink child who discovered theater at a young age.

Her brother Mitchell, who entered drama classes alongside her, also made it to Broadway.

He performed as Michael in the stage adaptation of Elf and later appeared in Matilda.

Then another Sink sibling found her way onto Stranger Things itself.

Sadie’s younger sister Jacey appeared as a younger version of Max during the show’s second season.

So while Sadie ultimately became the most famous actor in the family, performing wasn’t something completely foreign inside the Sink household.

For a family whose involvement began partly because two children wouldn’t stop recreating musical numbers, that is a surprisingly impressive result.

She Has Never Seemed Obsessed With Social Media Fame

For someone who became famous during the Instagram era, Sink has maintained an unusually detached relationship with social media.

She has attracted millions of followers, but she has also spoken about deleting social apps from her phone and not feeling the need to constantly document her life.

That attitude became increasingly notable as Stranger Things transformed its young cast into global celebrities.

Sink could easily have turned every part of her personal life into content.

Instead, she has generally kept a relatively restrained public presence and focused much more attention on her work.

It fits the contrast that has followed her throughout her career.

Max Mayfield is outspoken, rebellious and rarely afraid of confrontation. Sink has described herself as considerably quieter and more hesitant to speak up in everyday situations.

Perhaps that difference is part of what makes the character so appealing to her.

Sink has said she admires Max’s ability to say exactly what she thinks — a quality she doesn’t always feel she possesses herself.

Sadie Sink’s Career Started Long Before Hawkins — and Didn’t End There

Stranger Things changed Sadie Sink’s life.

There is no realistic way around that.

Joining one of Netflix’s biggest series as a teenager gave her global recognition and eventually allowed her to demonstrate dramatic abilities far beyond what viewers might have expected from Max’s introduction as the sarcastic new skateboarder in town.

But Sink’s story makes more sense when you look at everything that came before it.

She had already performed on Broadway.

She had already worked on network television.

She had already appeared in serious dramatic films.

And years before she became one of Netflix’s most recognizable young stars, she had learned what it meant to perform in front of a live audience night after night.

Her later career has continued expanding in much the same way — film, theater, fashion and roles far removed from Hawkins.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Sadie Sink is that the character who made her famous increasingly looks less like the destination of her career and more like one important stop along the way.