During the early seasons of Stranger Things, while Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Eleven and Max were saving Hawkins, the actors who play them were also going to school. Now, with the fifth and final season of Stranger Things out on the 2025 TV schedule, Sadie Sink has explained exactly how they got their education while filming the Netflix megahit, and it makes my brain hurt.
So, Sadie Sink was asked who her favorite teacher was during an interview with Glamour, and that’s how this explanation began. First, she answered the question at hand, noting that her favorite was Marina Papathanasiou, and she was the on-set teacher for Stranger Things. Then, the actress, who was 14 when she started playing Max, dove into the logistics of exactly how school worked while they were working, saying:
We’re basically required to get three hours of schoolwork done every single day that we’re working or not working during a school day. Sometimes you can get a minimum of one hour, and the other two hours you have to pull from your bank, which is a series of extra hours that you’ve built up over the time.
Do you remember those story problems in math class? That’s kind of what this feels like. I know that child actors have to go to school while they film their projects (I mean, HBO’s Harry Potter show built a school for their young stars). However, I’ve never thought about how they get their hours in.
I also never thought about this bank that the Stranger Things cast had. It’s giving “solve for x” as the kids had to keep track of their hours and make sure their bases were covered as they figured out how much work they could do. To that point, Sink broke down how the bank system works further, explaining:
So, say I went into school on an off day, did five hours, then those two would go into my bank. And they want you to build up the bank as much as you can. So, if it’s a very busy day, and you only have time for one hour of school, then they can pull from the bank.
This does make sense. On any set, actors typically don’t have consistent hours. Some days, they’re not needed; others, they are in some scenes but not all; and sometimes, they are required for every shot. So, when it comes to fitting school into all this, I get that those three hours cannot be guaranteed every day, and flexibility is necessary.
However, when you mix keeping track of hours in with homework, memorizing lines, shooting intense scenes, and just generally being a kid and probably not wanting to go to school, it sounds really hard. Sink noted that it is too, explaining:
But yeah, it’s chaotic. You never get anything done, because also sometimes you’re just working in like 20-minute increments. That’s a big ask for a kid who doesn’t want to be doing school anyway.
That certainly is a big ask for a kid; however, it sounds like Stranger Things handled it well. I mean, Sadie Sink literally said her favorite teacher was the on-set educator for the show. So, I’d say that’s pretty high praise.
However, thankfully, the young stars of this series don’t have to worry about all that anymore if they don’t want to. They’re all adults, with Sink specifically being 23, and these days, they don’t have to go to school and act at the same time (except for Noah Schnapp, who is about to graduate from college, per THR).
Overall, this whole process makes my brain hurt, and it makes the triumph that is Stranger Things even more impressive. That’s because while they were making this sci-fi show, they were also juggling school schedules, and that’s no easy task.
Now, to see how all this hard work paid off, you can watch the stellar young cast in the final season of Stranger Things with a Netflix subscription.
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