Rocketing to stardom
Ambitious 12-year-old gets her break in Netflix drama Stranger Things
Millie Bobby Brown is just 12 years old, but the British actress is already become a global phenomenon.
The Netflix drama Stranger Things won big at the Screen Actors Guild awards with Brown nominated for outstanding performance by a female actor for her role as the mysterious Eleven.
This came just a week after she joined the likes of Brooke Shields and Kate Moss as a “face” for Calvin Klein.
Born in Marbella, Spain, where her British parents Kelly and Robert Brown had gone to join her grandparents, who were running a restaurant, Millie is the third of four children.
As her father recalled, there was something about his daughter which immediately struck him as different. “My other children would watch cartoons, but Mill watched musicals. She’d belt out a tune.”
When Millie was four, the family moved to England. But when an opportunity opened for the family to relocate to Orlando, Fla., no one could have predicted what a lifechanging decision it would be.
Then eight, Millie perfected her American accent by watching Disney movies, and began attending a weekend stage school. Four hours every Saturday were spent acting, dancing and singing. An agent spotted her talent and approached the family offering to represent her.
Soon after, on the advice of the agent, the Brown family left Orlando for Los Angeles.
“It was very hard,” said Millie. “There were lots of tears.” Things got so desperate that at one point her British-born manager, Melanie Greene, is reported even to have lent the family money. “My older sister left. She didn’t want to do it (the U.S.) any more,” Millie recalled.
Although Millie landed small parts in hit shows such as Modern Family and Grey’s Anatomy, she kept missing out on the big starring roles, like Spielberg ’s BFG. By 2015, it looked as if the family’s gamble had been a serious misjudgment, and as money became tighter, the Browns gave up and moved back to Britain and in with Millie’s aunt.
“I thought I was done,” Millie said.
The same day that a casting agent made her cry by saying she was “too mature and grown-up” for a part, she auditioned for Stranger Things. When she landed the part, little did she know it would be the breakout role she had been dreaming about.
The cast were kept in the dark about the plot. But the signs were already there that this unapologetically nostalgic show, set in the ’80s, and referencing TV shows made more than two decades before Millie was born, was going to be a huge hit.
“They told me to watch Poltergeist, Stand By Me and The Goonies,” says Millie. “And basically, if you put that in a blender, you get Stranger Things. But they told me that the performance they wanted me to resemble was E.T.”
With the success of the show, Millie is seated in the front row at New York Fashion Week. Three days ago, news landed of her first major film, starring in the Godzilla sequel, due for release in 2019.
Her work ethic and brand-building acumen have become legendary. Millie has kept her name in the headlines with a YouTube channel, where she posts cover versions of Amy Winehouse ballads and Nicki Minaj raps, and has amassed 1.5 million followers on Instagram.
Her family can now sit back in the knowledge they were right to back their daughter’s ambition. Her 19-year-old brother Charlie looks after her Twitter account, 23-yearold sister Paige is in charge of Instagram and her aunt runs Millie’s YouTube channel.
She turns to father Robert (“who has a great American accent and knows all of the characters”) when she needs to practise her lines, and to her mother for her outfits.
As one commentator put it: “She has that unquantifiable star quality, the kind of presence some actors take a lifetime to acquire.
“She may only be 12, but Millie and her team have a very focused career plan in place, and the world really is her oyster.”
They told me to watch Poltergeist, Stand By Me and The Goonies. And basically, if you put that in a blender, you get Stranger Things.