“I feel physically in my body”: ‘Stranger Things’ Star Sadie Sink Was Forced to Stop Listening to 1 Taylor Swift Song For a Reason That’ll Make Every Swiftie Sad For Her

Sadie Sink’s popularity has only risen since her breakout role as Max Mayfield in Stranger Things. After making a name in theaters, the 22-year-old actress has quickly become a Netflix sensation. But apart from her sci-fi series, there are some other projects that helped her gain more popularity.

When Sink is not battling Demogorgons, she tries to build a diverse filmography. She is already proving her versatility with her indie films and high-profile collaborations, and one such project was with pop icon Taylor Swift.

Why did Sadie Sink Removed All Too Well From Her Playlist?

Other than creating heart-touching and catchy melodies, Taylor Swift is also known for spotting talent and having a knack for storytelling and direction. Her collaboration with Sadie Sink was one such occasion that left a lasting impact on the young actress.

It can be said that Sink’s role in All Too Well: The Short Film has been a game-changer for her career. The film was based on Swift’s extended version of the All Too Well song. It featured Sink alongside Dylan O’Brien in a 15-minute emotional story of love and loss.

The plot of the short film was that a young woman, played by Sink, fell in love with an older man, played by O’Brien. And since it is a Taylor Swift breakup anthem, their story didn’t end happily. The story was speculated to be inspired by the romance between Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal at the time.

Sink’s performance captured the emotion required for her character pretty well, but her connection with the song seems to go beyond just acting in the video. In a recent interview with Variety, she revealed,

It holds this incredibly nostalgic feeling for me now that I feel physically in my body. It’s too intense.

Due to the emotional weight of the song, Sink decided to remove it from her “wind down song” rotation. Talking about the unfamiliar emotions she tapped into for her role, she said in the interview,

I had never been in love. I had never been through a breakup that intense. It was all foreign territory for me.

This makes her performance in the film much more noteworthy, as she managed to portray the complex emotions of her character’s breakup with such conviction at just 19.

How Sadie Sink Tapped into Taylor Swift’s World

Sink’s approach to portraying her character in Swift’s production was quite different. Being a Swiftie herself, she had already been preparing for the assignment for years, without even knowing it.

The Stranger Things actress was able to identify with the character, and confessed that Swift’s lyrics helped her to relate to it deeply. Sink delivered an emotional performance in the film’s break-up scene, as the lyric “And you call me up again just to break me like a promise” plays.

Improvisation is perhaps the most interesting thing in this film from the filmmaking point of view. The kitchen scene where Sink and O’Brien fight was shot in one take also managed to make its way to the final cut.

In her interview with Variety, Sink said that as the shooting continued, she often saw herself using real-life experiences. She said,

But as I was going, things from my personal life kind of came forward, which fueled it even more. Then I was like, ‘Whoa. Maybe I should do some work on Sadie in these areas.’

The shooting process got to a point where it became almost like a self-discovery for Sink. Moreover, her self-introspection itself shows how intense the short film became for her.

All Too Well: The Short Film is available to stream on YouTube.