Why Sadie Sink was shocked that Dylan O’Brien kitchen fight scene made Taylor…see more

Why Sadie Sink was shocked that Dylan O’Brien kitchen fight scene made Taylor Swift’s All Too Well video

“I don’t remember anything I said; we only did one take,” Sink said.

Sadie Sink was thrilled to appear in the music video for the 10-minute version of Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” music video — but she was surprised that a key scene made the final cut.

In an interview with Bustle, the Stranger Things star said that she didn’t expect the kitchen argument sequence to remain in the 2021 video, as it was heavily improvised and quickly shot. “When she told me she kept that scene, I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” Sink recalled. “It was completely on the fly; I don’t remember anything I said; we only did one take.”

The actress noted that she assumed the fight scene would simply be used as soundless footage underscored by the song. “I remember they attached microphones to us, and I was like, ‘Why are they making us wear a mic?’ I thought they were just capturing our mouths moving and we were going to visualize a fight in the kitchen [with music playing over it]. I just went with whatever came up in the moment. It was a crazy, fun acting game, and it happened to be in the final cut.”

Sink said that she appreciates the realism that the improvisational technique cultivated. “What’s so cool and realistic about it is that in a fight, it’s not supposed to be completely well thought-out…You may say the same thing over and over, but that’s real, and that’s natural,” she opined. “You don’t see a lot of natural dialogue in films. So for her to allow us the space to improvise and interact in a way that we would if we were actually having a fight with our partner, just really served the song and the story well.”

In the video, Sink plays a young woman in a tumultuous relationship with an older man, played by Dylan O’Brien. The dynamic between the two characters reflects the lyrics of Swift’s song, which was originally released in its shorter five-minute version on her 2012 album Red and has been rumored to concern her brief romance with Jake Gyllenhaal. At the end of the video, Swift herself plays an older version of Sink’s character, who has apparently detailed the couple’s relationship in a book, also titled All Too Well.

The actress also explained that she was surprised that she ended up on Swift’s radar in the first place. “It was wildly confusing at first, because I never thought of myself as someone who would even reach her desk,” Sink said. “But I grew up on her music and was such a fan. She’s been such a huge part of my life. If a song of hers reminded me of a character, I would use it to get into a role. She had always been a little voice in my head, so it was super surreal.”