Warning: This story contains spoilers from Stranger Things Season 4, Volume 1.

Sadie Sink’s Stranger Things cool-girl skateboarder, Max Mayfield, is no stranger to bone-chilling moments. She’s battled the Mind Flayer in the food court of a mall and taken the even more terrifying leap of leaning in for a first kiss during a school dance. But it’s still impossible not to feel your heart swell — and your pulse race — as Max sprints out of the Upside Down in Season 4’s fourth episode, “Dear Billy.” There’s no denying we’re a long way from the soft lighting and fall girl vibes of Sink’s internet-breaking turn in Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” music video. 

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“The running bit actually must have been five takes of me running, like, 25 yards that they just cut together to make it look like I was running a lot further,” Sink tells Tudum of her death-defying marathon, a few days before Stranger Things Season 4’s premiere on May 27. “But really it was just like one little square of murky, bloody water.” The effect is anything but “little,” as Max dodges falling rocks bigger than herself and slogs through pulpy viscera as her savior song, Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” blasts in the background. This is Max reaching for life — Stranger Things’ strongest rays of hope are often birthed out of the show’s darkest moments. (See also: Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) return from her “lost sister” interlude in Season 2.) 

“I do think if any of the kids are going to get targeted, it is going to be Max,” Sink says matter-of-factly, now glammed up and far from the buckets of gore that drenched her during filming. The actor stands in a room inspired by Ozark’s Missouri Belle Casino in Netflix’s Los Angeles FYSEE space. The area celebrating Stranger Things is far too loud for conversation. It boasts blaring clock sounds — the same anxiety-inducing gonging that torments Max until she winds up in the Upside Down with Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower), Hawkins’ latest murderous supernatural villain. Vecna is attracted to suffering, and no one feels more isolated than Max when we check back in with her in Season 4. 

Max (Sadie Sink) visiting Billy’s grave.

Tina Rowden/Netflix

“It’s not just that Max is grieving. It’s that she feels this massive amount of guilt,” Sink says. As fans see in Volume 1, the Mayfield family has crumbled following the demise of Max’s stepbrother, Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery). While Max’s friends find their social perches as freshmen at Hawkins High, Sink doubts that “anything” sparks an interest for her character. “It’s not so much that she really misses Billy. Maybe she does,” Sink explains. “But his death was just traumatic for her to witness.” 

As Vecna latches onto Max’s most grim feelings like a hungry restaurant goer latches onto the smell of fajitas, she must come to terms with her status as his next target. First, Max attempts to have a final conversation with her mother. The heart-to-heart turns out to be a cruel fantasy starring Vecna — not Mrs. Mayfield. “Max doesn’t easily open up to people. So when she chooses to do so in the smallest way, not even giving her mom the full details, only for it to not even be her in the first place?” Sink says. “Yeah. It’s devastating.” 

Despite the bleakness, Sink appreciates these kinds of “real, raw moments” that help ground a series as elaborate as Stranger Things. To be true to life, Sink herself penned the goodbye letter that Max reads at Billy’s grave. “I only write in script. But they’re like, ‘Max wouldn’t write in script,’” Sink points out with a laugh. So she created a script-print “hybrid” for Max. 

Erik Carter for Netflix

“Max is very emotionally unavailable. Even until what is likely the last few days of her life, she still doesn’t want to have a face-to-face conversation with anyone, telling them what they meant to her,” Sink says. “She cannot be vulnerable with anyone, even when her life is on the line.” 

It’s only when Max is literally staring death in the face that she allows herself to embrace all of the emotion she has locked up. As Vecna prepares to consume her in the Upside Down, Max flashes back to her happiest moments with loved ones, romantic interest Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin) chief among them. It’s that moment that breaks Vecna’s hold on Max, allowing her to run toward an interdimensional projection of her friends who are desperately trying to save her. 

“She’s been wanting to give up... But her friends show up for her, and I think that’s what really helps her,” Sink says. “She is someone in a lot of pain. To see her go on this journey and then even more painful circumstances, but still choose to fight the good fight and be a team player, and also just continue on for herself as well — that’s really inspiring.” Fittingly, a moving orchestral version of “Running Up That Hill” plays viewers into the credits after Max’s “brave” moment. 

Sink at the “All Too Well” Premiere on Nov. 12, 2021, in New York City.

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

While Kate Bush’s inspirational track will always anchor Max, Sink recently expanded her own musical horizons by appearing as a young Taylor Swift avatar (aka “Her”) in the pop star’s “All Too Well” short film. The music video collaboration is clearly a win for Sink, as she reveals Swift’s “august” is the song that would save her from Vecna’s thrall. “That song honestly can revive me from anything,” Sink admits (even though Swift’s “The 1” was actually at the top of her Spotify Wrapped last year). 

The actor is far less certain when she ponders the connection between her Stranger Things role and her turn as Her for Swift, beyond the fact that they look identical. “It’s tricky because they’re such different situations,” Sink says at first. Max is a high-schooler whose greatest threat is the collapse of reality as she knows it; Her is a twentysomething battling one of the greatest bad pop culture boyfriends, played by Dylan O’Brien to infuriating perfection. 

“I put a little bit of myself into both. You’re always going to put a little bit of yourself into whatever character you’re playing,” Sink continues. “At the heart of it, they’re both definitely independent.” 

Sink films Max’s escape from the Upside Down.

Tina Rowden/Netflix

Stranger Things fans will continue to see Max’s maverick side when Season 4’s Volume 2 premieres Friday, July 1. Sink promises the final two episodes will shed even more light on the power of Max’s race to survive in Volume 1. “You go deeper into where she actually was mentally [before the events of Season 4],” she teases. “It’s even more impactful looking back at her choosing to fight, once you hear her open up in the finale.” 

So, if you think Max deserves a break after tentatively breaking free from the clutches of a dark wizard with a vendetta the size of the Upside Down... well, you must have forgotten the saga of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp). “Max is going to have to step up. She has some pretty brave moments in Volume 1. But Volume 2 — it’s the ultimate for her,” Sink says. “She really has to put herself on the line.” 

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