- Where are you at with "Running Up That Hill" right now?
Like, is it your most-loved song, or are you like,
I'm good, I could take a breather,
we don't need to hear it every single time
I walk into a room? [laughs]
- Listen, I love it.
Like, I still love the song.
I was shocked it wasn't on my -
it was on my, like, Spotify Wrapped
that just came out, so I was checking it,
but last year, that was No. 1.
I was listening to it on set all the time.
This year, it was not.
- (laughs) Fair enough.
Look, the last year-plus has been pretty intense,
pretty amazing. Let's run through it quickly.
Let's see, you took on Vecna
and you survived to tell the tale.
You're- - I know.
- You're officially Taylor Swift's muse,
or at least one of them, and you just went toe-to-toe
with some of the most amazing acting talent in the world
in 'The Whale,' and you more than held your own.
So, fair to say this has been -
has this been the best professional year of your career
so far, you think?
- I guess so, yeah. It's been very exciting.
Yeah, I feel very, very grateful,
and most importantly, it's all been very fun, so.
- That is good, especially some of the material
can be intense, so I'm glad that you're finding the fun,
the joy in it.
- Yeah, totally.
I mean, as long as I'm on set,
like, that's my zone, so I'm very, I'm happy.
- Let's talk a little bit about first, 'The Whale,'
which I'm obsessed with.
It is a beautiful piece of work from Darren Aronofsky.
You had your big premiere here in New York last night.
Talk to me about, like, what that's like
because you've done your fair share of premieres now,
but often you are surrounded by, like, 15 of your friends
from 'Stranger Things'
This is a little bit of a different environment,
a smaller cast.
- Yeah. - Did you feel -
did it feel like a different kind of a thing
for you or what?
- I mean, we had done like Venice and Toronto,
which - that was really exciting,
but it was nice to have a premiere at home
that, like, friends and family could come to.
My whole family hadn't seen the movie.
My mom had seen it, but the rest of my family
hadn't seen the movie, so they were all there last night,
which, it was very interesting to watch it with them
'cause I don't think they really were fully aware
of what the film was about and who my character was,
but they were all crying at the end of it.
So that was a success for me, I guess.
- Oh, mission accomplished.
I saw this, I got a chance to see this
at the Toronto Film Festival and I have to say, Sadie,
legitimately, the last 15 minutes, it cracked me open.
I was a blubbering mess.
Like, I don't, it just -
and that is not unique to me. That is an experience.
This movie can really sink its claws into you.
Did the material strike you as that, like, from the get-go?
Like, when you read this, did you get it?
Did you see the potential for what it could be?
- Oh, I mean, absolutely.
Like, it first came to me as just an untitled
Darren Aronofsky project.
So, he wanted me to do a reading or something
with the group of actors he was assembling
at this East Village theater,
and I didn't know what it was,
and they sent the script a few hours in advance,
and I kind of skimmed through it
and then I got to this theater
and they sat me next to Brendan [Fraser]
and then we just did, like, a pretty much cold reading
of 'The Whale,' which, it's hard to do a cold reading
of someone like Ellie, but still, like, I just,
I mean, she was - every single character in this film
was incredibly complex and so real.
I just never read writing this rich,
and obviously knowing that it was gonna be
in the hands of Darren,
every actor would wanna work with him.
So, I knew there was something special there for sure.
- Is it as taxing emotionally as it would seem?
I mean, it's taxing emotionally on an audience,
so I can only imagine what it's like for the actors
to live through this for however long you're shooting it.
This is just a characteristic of Darren's work,
all of his work really, just emotionally -
he just so fully engages you,
and this might be the most intense yet.
What was the experience like shooting it?
You say you found the joy
even in the intensity of it, or what?
- Even though this character is not joyful in any way,
I felt so fulfilled at the end of every day,
and it was a very focused environment, and you know,
Brendan, given the prosthetics and the timing
and everything, like, we were all just very focused
and we'd had rehearsals, so we were very prepared
but I don't think anything could have prepared me
for like, that final sequence,
the final scene - Yeah.
- Between Ellie and Charlie.
That was shot over three days, I think.
Darren was just kind of, towards the end of it,
like day three, he'd just be like,
"All right, like, ring it out, just ring it out,"
and it was kind of like, I don't know,
it was very therapeutic almost for this character
and to have spent that time with her,
and for someone like her who's just, you know,
she's just this wall, and there's no vulnerability there,
but to have that final moment where everything
just seeps out, it was such a release
and yeah, a little taxing, but ultimately,
you know, felt good at the end of the day.
- This one, you know, you alluded to this,
a lot of your stuff is one-on-one, you and Brendan,
Brendan Fraser, who delivers this amazing performance
and the relationship is fraught to say the least.
It is a - yeah, I mean, you say some brutal things
to this gentle sweet man.
He's like the world's most beloved teddy bear.
- Right.
- Was it tough to be, like, pretty mean
to Brendan Fraser's face for an extended period of time?
- Yes, sometimes it was, but as Ellie,
you can't have a hint of remorse
for the things that you're saying.
- Right.
- Yeah, at the end of the day, I'm like,
oh, he's so sweet, but he's a trooper.
And for Ellie, like, whenever, you know,
the things that she's saying, it's just constantly,
she's testing him, she's getting back at him.
She's got a goal and you know,
it's all just kind of like this coping mechanism for her.
I think all the characters have their own
self-destructive coping mechanisms in the film,
and for Ellie, it's just this rage
and violence in her actions and words
and it's the only thing she can do to get
this sense of control and power over the situation,
and who she wants control over and power over is Charlie,
the man who she blames for a lot of the hardships
in her life and, you know, the person that she became.
So yeah, you know, those scenes are definitely hard
to be mean to Brendan Fraser, but not for Ellie.
- Does your theater experience help you
in a situation like this?
I know unusually, this one actually had a fair amount
of rehearsal, which almost never happens in film.
It's pretty much a one-set kind of a film for the most part.
Do you think that kind of helped train you
for this unique environment?
- For sure.
I mean, - Yeah.
- That's kind of how I fell in love with acting,
is just with theater, and I was really young,
but that's what I knew.
Really up until I did this movie,
I was still kind of getting comfortable with being on set,
and it's one thing performing in front of a live audience,
but it's just different when, like,
you're in an on-set environment
and it's tough to get vulnerable
in high-pressure situations.
But I think with this,
because we had that rehearsal process,
because it really did feel like
we were kind of this theater company
and Darren had taped out the walls of the apartment
in this warehouse that we were rehearsing in
for three weeks,
that preparation and that kind of, like, character study
and the trust that we all had with each other,
it really allowed for everyone
just to kind of leave it out on the table
and really, you know, get vulnerable, get a little messy.
- This is a leveling up moment for you, let's be real.
Like, when you work with the caliber of filmmaker
like Aronofsky and something that is gonna be seen
by the right people in the right way,
the opportunities are only gonna get greater.
Like, where's your head at right now in terms of criteria?
Like, do you think about genre
or kind of filmmaker or experience?
Like, what are you looking for?
- Right now for me, I think it's all about filmmakers
and just the people that you're working with
because after doing something like 'The Whale,'
something that was as fulfilling as that,
it's really what just reminded me, like,
why I love this so much
and I think I need to kind of chase that feeling
rather than, you know, what's big and exciting,
for now at least, like, that's -
I'm really just like looking forward to doing more film
and working with more people that are like-minded
with Darren, and that's really exciting for me to,
I don't know, to kind of step into the film world, I guess
'cause it's a new side of it for me.
- Well, speaking of the right people,
as rare as it is to work for Darren Aronofsky,
you are one of a very select few to be directed
by the great Taylor Swift.
- Yes.
- This is a distinction,
the beginning of what I think could be
a really interesting filmmaking career, it would seem.
How would you characterize her directing style?
Were you surprised by kind of her attitude,
her methodology on set?
Was it all just like a nice bizarre experience?
A surreal experience, or what?
- She's so relaxed and confident
and she knows exactly what she wants,
and that's a great quality in a director,
and you know, she has that.
But she also was really open to just, like, playing around
and, you know, new ideas,
and that was a really neat experience
because it was very freeing.
It was just a camera, and they would follow wherever we went
and oftentimes, you'd forget that
there was even a camera there,
but yeah, it was four days, it was really quick,
but she made, you know, a short film out of it
and like, you kind of forgot what we were doing.
But she's very smart, she knows what she wants,
and she put something together that's really, really special
and getting a lot of love, which is great.
- Yeah, it's also interesting, like, if you do the math,
you both kind of found celebrity
roughly around the same age.
Is that something that you at all -
I know it was a brief shoot,
but I assume you've also had time to talk
with her subsequently. Have you discussed
sort of navigating fame at that very delicate age?
I mean, she really did it probably as best
as you could possibly imagine.
Are there lessons to be learned by the way
Taylor has navigated that really tricky terrain, you think?
- I mean, for sure, and especially with her
and the music industry is something that's, I think,
a lot different from what I do,
but yeah, being in the spotlight at that age
is something that we could kind of relate to, I guess.
With me, I like having the luxury of sometimes
being able to like hide behind a character.
- Right. - She has a lot
of sage advice on that because it's, you know,
it's a very unique experience
and I've, you know, kind of through her
and my other castmates,
it's nice to have people who you can relate to.
- Let's talk a little 'Stranger Things.'
I think the last time I saw you
was at the big premiere for the last season,
which couldn't have been received better,
and what an amazing season for you and your character, Max.
Talk to me a little bit about jumping on to a show
that was already a phenomenon, right?
Like, that's a very unique experience.
You know, Season 2, OK,
they know what they're doing here.
Did it feel like you were joining a moving train?
Did it feel like you had the safety and comfort
of something that knew how to do what it was doing?
Just give me a sense of what it's like
to join a show that's already such a phenomenon.
- It was scary in the sense that, like,
I just knew from the call from Matt and Ross [Duffer]
that I got it,
like, oh, things are gonna be different.
But also, there is security, like you were saying,
and just knowing that it is a show that people love
but they kind of go hand-in-hand, I guess.
Like, it's, you know, the good and the scary.
But I always, you know, I was the new kid
and I really felt like that, honestly this entire time.
So for Season 4 to come out and for, you know,
the Kate Bush stuff to happen,
like, that was really a shock to me
'cause I still kind of felt like I was, I don't know,
just, like, very new, and so to have that
and for Matt and Ross to kind of write that storyline,
I was very, very grateful for.
- So we know, looking forward, the end is coming.
I assume at this moment, you've seen no scripts.
Do you know anything of what's to come for Season 5?
- Oh, I wish.
They keep it, like, very locked.
I have no idea, but I think we're all very excited
but just like really sad to know that this is the last one.
But I think we're all in agreement that, like,
it's gonna end on a high note
and it's better to go out that way than to,
you know, drag it on.
So it's time, but man, it's gonna, that'll be rough.
That last day will be rough.
- So Millie [Bobby Brown] seems to have,
like, bloodlust on her brain.
She wants everybody to die.
Where are you at?
I mean, Max has already been through it.
You would think after getting through Season 4,
Max deserves to have a happy ending, doesn't she?
- Oh, listen, I would love to see it,
I would love to see it, but the Duffers are smart
obviously, and they're only gonna kill a character off
if it's important to the plot.
I don't think it should be a bloodbath though,
I really don't.
I think we all love these characters too much.
We've said goodbye to too many at this point.
Let's keep us all around.
- Yeah, save the crying for 'The Whale.'
We can have few tears, right? - Yeah, sure.
If you wanna cry, go see 'The Whale.'