Millie Bobby Brown is ready to say goodbye to Stranger Things. She considers the final season of the massively popular Netflix series to be like the last year of high school — you're a little sad to close the chapter, but ready for what's next.
“When you’re ready, you’re like, ‘All right, let’s do this. Let’s tackle this last senior year. Let’s get out of here,’” Brown told Glamour of her feelings about the series and her beloved character, Eleven. “Stranger Things takes up a lot of time to film and it’s preventing me from creating stories that I’m passionate about. So I’m ready to say, ‘Thank you, and goodbye.’”
She acknowledged that Stranger Things gave her “the tools and the resources to be a better actor," but said she's ready to leave it in the past — though she'll still prize the relationships with her costars long after she's left Hawkins behind. “When it ends, I’m going to be able to still see these people.”
Part of Brown's readiness to move on from Stranger Things stems from the negative impacts of childhood stardom she experienced early in her career. While speaking to Glamour, Brown reflected on the first few press tours for the show, during which she was harshly criticized for being too loud and interrupting her costars. “We’re kids — we talk over each other,” said Brown. “I was just penalized for overtalking and oversharing and being too loud.”
People — many of whom were adults — called her “a brat” and said she was trying to “steal the thunder” from her cast mates. Such comments made quite an impression on the young star, essentially forcing her to stop participating in interviews. “It’s hard to hear that at 13,” she recalled. “You’re like, 'I don’t want to ever talk again. I don’t want to be the loud person.' In interviews I couldn’t help but think of all the comments. So I just remembered to stay silent and speak when I was spoken to, even though I was dying to join in. I just felt it wasn’t my turn.”
Brown credits her grandmother with encouraging her love of acting and to be herself. When other adults told the young Brown to be quiet, her grandma would “never tolerate that” and told her granddaughter she would “never let anyone dull your sparkle."
Brown is on the verge of a new phase in her career. The actor's early years in Hollywood taught her a lot, and she wants to be a big sister for the next generation of child stars. “You cannot speak on children that are underage,” Brown asserted, referencing the unfair criticism she received in the past. “I mean, our brains physically have not grown yet. To diminish and practically stunt someone’s growth mentally, strip them down, tell them, 'Hey, listen, you don’t look that great. Why are you wearing that? How dare you think you can wear that? How dare you say that?’”
According to Brown, she's had “trust issues” because of how hard she works to protect herself from the words of the outside world; she calls herself a “reserved person" in social situations. “Nobody’s allowed in,” she explained. “Nobody can say sh*t…. This is my life, and the only people that are allowed are the people that I open the gate for. Other than that, everybody’s out."
She continued, "And yes, it’s sad…. I don’t have a lot of friends. Yes, I block out a lot of people." But Brown praised her fiancé, Jake Bongiovi, for encouraging her, just as her grandmother did. “When I met Jake, I just felt I could be loud," she said. "He embraced that and encouraged that. And I fell in love with myself while being with him.”
