Noah Jupe and Sadie Sink are comparing their CVs. \u201cNoah has more Shakespeare experience than me, for sure,\u201d says Sink. \u201cOh yes, I think so,\u201d replies Jupe. \u201cHow many lines?\u201d asks Sink. \u201cQuite a few, actually,\u201d he reports. \u201cMore than 10!\u201d<\/p>\n
If Jupe wanted to flex, he could say in all truth that he played Hamlet when he was only 19. That was two summers ago, when he stood on the stage in a replica of Shakespeare\u2019s Globe theatre and asked \u201cTo be or not to be?\u201d in Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s Oscar-nominated adaptation of Hamnet<\/a>.<\/p>\n But playing an actor playing Hamlet was, he admits, in no way based on experience: \u201cSadly, until now, Shakespeare wasn\u2019t really something I was interested in.\u201d He never got on with the plays at school. \u201cIt was taught in this way that was so boring and intellectual that it just went in one ear and out the other. You didn\u2019t find any passion for it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Acting now means something different than what I thought it meant\u2019 … Sink performing as Annie in 2013. Photograph: John Lamparski\/WireImage<\/p>\n And yet here he is, at the end of a day\u2019s rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet<\/a>, sitting alongside the acclaimed theatre director Robert Icke. He\u2019s not the only one surprised by the turn of events. Sink \u2013 who is 23 and better known as Max Mayfield in Stranger Things, a role that has brought her global fame \u2013 begins to say she never saw herself doing Shakespeare. Then she stops and clarifies: never, certainly, as early as this. But her first meeting with Icke convinced her: \u201cI just had this gut feeling. \u2018I do this, and I do it right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Icke remembers the conversation. \u201cI said, \u2018Look, one of the things that you could do now that will escape you in five years is Juliet. It\u2019s an amazing part, and so few people get to play it, because you have to play it young for it to make any sense.\u2019\u201d As for Icke\u2019s motivation: well, he and the play have unfinished business.<\/p>\n The production he mounted back in 2012<\/a> \u2013 only his second as a professional director \u2013 was praised for the way it captured the heady rush of teenage love. But \u201cit just wasn\u2019t finished\u201d reflects Icke. \u201cIt was made on a tour, on no money, and I was really little. With Shakespeare you probably always get a certain distance and then just as you complete it you can see the bit that you didn\u2019t get to and you think, \u2018Ah, next time \u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n To be or not to be? … Jupe in the Oscar-nominated Hamnet. Photograph: Agata Grzybowska\/AP<\/p>\n After meeting Sink and Jupe \u2013 whose films include A Quiet Place and Honey Boy \u2013 he sensed this was that time. Their five weeks of rehearsal have been, in their own words, an education. \u201cIt\u2019s been cool thinking back to the chemistry read that we did. We\u2019ve obviously grown so much since then,\u201d says Sink.<\/p>\n Playing Romeo in the West End<\/a> will be Jupe\u2019s stage debut and he is boyishly enthusiastic about it. \u201cIn films we never get to speak that much,\u201d he admits. \u201cThis is marrying your voice and the words to your heart and that\u2019s something I\u2019ve not really had experience of. But when you get it, when the two connect, it feels as if you\u2019re flying.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike Jupe, Sink grew up as a self-described theatre nerd \u2013 a West End debut can hold few terrors for someone who played Annie on Broadway when she was 10. She was 14 when she started filming Stranger Things<\/a>, and the work took over her teenage life. Did it take over her identity as well? \u201cYeah, you can\u2019t stop it, and there\u2019s no reason to really. It is always going to be a huge part of my life and I\u2019m so grateful for my time on that show \u2013 I think it really protected me in a lot of ways, because it was such a constant environment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m more sympathetic to what it\u2019s like to be a parent in this play\u2019 … director Robert Icke. Photograph: Dim Balsem<\/p>\n She and Jupe had never met before they were cast. But they knew each other\u2019s work, and if there\u2019s one thing they can bond over, it\u2019s the shared experience of being a child actor. Sink\u2019s parents moved their family from Texas to New Jersey to be closer to New York City when both she and her brother Mitchell began performing professionally; Jupe\u2019s mother is an actor and writer and his father worked on the production side. Their guidance was invaluable in shaping his career and now his 12-year-old brother is also benefiting \u2013 Jacobi Jupe played the title role in Hamnet<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s tough to go through that world and still come out of it loving being an actor,\u201d says Jupe, \u201cso it\u2019s very rare when you get to work with someone around your age in a similar position.\u201d Sink agrees. \u201cWhen I was about 18 my mentality shifted a bit. I am still passionate about acting, but I also think it means something different than what I thought it meant. So anything before that just feels like a separate chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s really nice to explore a relationship like this one, and give yourself hope that it exists in the world.\u2019 Photograph: Helen Murray<\/p>\n She marked her transition with her first stage appearance since she was 13, in John Proctor Is the Villain<\/a>, Kimberly Belflower\u2019s high-school take on The Crucible. A new play with an ensemble cast was, says Sink, \u201cthe perfect thing to return with\u201d; it ran for five months on Broadway and by the end, Sink was determined to make more time for theatre. John Proctor Is the Villain transfers to the Royal Court theatre in London this month and opens a couple of days after Romeo and Juliet. Sink is down as an executive producer on the film version currently in development.<\/p>\n The thought of playing Juliet raised one question, however. \u201cShe\u2019s written as really, really young, and I did wonder, does that feel too distant? Like, have I kind of grown up too much?\u201d Sink\u2019s maturity is often commented on \u2013 today, she is the most contained of the three, keeping her counsel and watching quietly as Jupe discusses love, limerence and the perils of gen Z dating.<\/p>\n \u201cWe live in a world of dating apps and social media where even if you find this girl pretty, there\u2019s someone across the world in Brazil that\u2019s, like, way better,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s really nice to explore a relationship like the one in Romeo and Juliet<\/a> and give yourself hope that such a thing exists in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Sink gives him a sceptical look: \u201cI mean, they both die in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, but acting on that spark when you feel it, I just don\u2019t think we do that nowadays. And even if you think you\u2019ve found what you\u2019re looking for, you immediately doubt yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s an interesting observation, especially as Icke\u2019s 2012 production emphasised the nature of chance and coincidence in the play, even incorporating Sliding Doors moments. \u201cSo many people want it to be a play about Montagues v Capulets,\u201d says Icke, \u201cand actually, it isn\u2019t. Because if Romeo were to turn up at the tomb five minutes later, he\u2019d find Juliet awake and they\u2019d be fine.<\/p>\n \u2018It is always going to be a huge part of my life and I\u2019m so grateful\u2019 \u2026 Sink as Max Mayfield in Stranger Things. Photograph: Courtesy of Netflix\/Netflix<\/p>\n \u201cIn all of the other tragedies,\u201d he points out, \u201cthe bad thing is already happening before the play starts and hangs over it like a cloud \u2013 Hamlet\u2019s dad is dead, King Lear\u2019s mind is wobbling. This one is different. It could so easily be a comedy.\u201d<\/p>\n Telling the most famous love story in the world as if we don\u2019t all know the ending is one trick, but in casting two young screen stars with plenty of heat around them Icke hopes to pull off another kind of coup. Jupe\u2019s awards appearances with Jacobi this month were just the start: he is soon to star in major films alongside Hugh Jackman and Benedict Cumberbatch, as well playing the lead role in a TV adaptation of Sebastian Faulks\u2019s novel Engleby.<\/p>\n