“Stranger Things” star Sadie Sink reveals theater audience behavior that gives her ‘so much rage’

Key Points

• Stranger Things actress Sadie Sink revealed an audience behavior that fills her with “so much rage.”

• The Tony nominee said she wants audiences to take in performances instead of distract themselves during free moments.

• Sink will next appear in the highly anticipated Spider-Man movie sequel opposite Tom Holland and Zendaya.

Stranger Things actress Sadie Sink would very much like to see… less strange things going on inside theaters.

The 24-year-old Tony nominee opened up about the audience behavior that’s consistently stunned her during performances as Juliet in an adaptation of the classic Romeo and Juliet on London’s West End.

Sink recalled in a new interview that she often hears audiences shuffling in their seats while (spoiler alert, in case you don’t know how Romeo and Juliet ends) a knife is still lodged into her character’s stomach.

“The lights go off, and then I just see all these faces in the audience because everyone is turning their phone on,” she told Nylon. “I’m like, ‘Guys, give it a minute. Take it in for a second!’”

She also said that she’s seen phones go up in the audience long before the play’s final act.

“I am filled with so much rage when I see, like, three iPhones in the audience,” Sink said before admitting to watching bootleg recordings of stage productions when she was growing up.

She added, “They raised me, those bootlegs, and inspired me so much. That’s why we need to make theater very accessible, so that everyone can go in and see it, but also people from all over the world. That wasn’t accessible to me in Texas, so I get it, but wait for the pro-shot.”

Still, Sink isn’t the only star who’s annoyed by cell phones in the theater. At the 2026 Tonys, Julia Louis-Dreyfus offered a comical NSFW warning to phone-using Broadway audiences when she said she wants them to “get the f— off their phones,” while Matt Rogers also advised audiences to “turn the phone off” in an interview with The Cut.

Now, Sink has successfully crossed over to the other side of the camera, having rose to international fame as one of the stars of Netflix’s Stranger Things series, which concluded its epic five-season run in December 2025.

Outside of her critically lauded turn opposite Brendan Fraser’s Oscar-winning role in 2022’s The Whale and as the lead actress in Taylor Swift’s All Too Well short film, Sink will next appear opposite Tom Holland and Zendaya in a highly secretive role in the blockbuster sequel Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

“I knew that Marvel was a big deal and had a big brand, especially Spider-Man,” she told the outlet of joining the high-profile project. “I know there’s a huge fan base, but it feels really big. I think these blockbuster movies are a whole different beast.”

She also credited Holland with making it easy to join a project riding on such a robust and intimidating legacy.

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“It was interesting stepping into that space and being a little bit of an outsider in that way, but he could not have been more welcoming, and just the whole crew in general,” Sink noted. “He was just so relaxed and open, and I felt very at ease.”

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters July 31.

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