The Endearing Allure Of Millie Bobby Brown

Millie Bobby Brown doesn’t act her age. And that’s a good thing.

- Patrick Chew

SITTING OPPOSITE Millie Bobby Brown, and listening to her speak about her life experiences was rather surreal. After all, this is a 15-year-old girl who grew up watching the Disney Channel, someone who wanted nothing more than to be like Miley Cyrus in Hannah Montana and Selena Gomez in Wizards of Waverly Place.

But Brown has more than moved on from that, and speaks like a seasoned actress, well beyond her years about her Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, how she can’t wrap her head around how much things have changed since “Stranger Things”, and how she’s done so many dramas that she’s ready to branch out and explore other things such as directing, which, according to her, would come naturally because she’s a self-proclaimed bossy person.

No, I wasn’t dealing with any other 15-year-old. It’s a sentiment that seems to be echoed throughout the industry and by everyone who has spent time with Brown.

Aaron Paul wrote in last year’s Time 100 that he immediately regretted choosing an ice cream shop to meet Brown because she possessed “a perspective and groundedness” that made her “somehow understand the human experience as if she has lived it for a thousand years.” David Harbour, who stars opposite Brown as Chief Hopper in “Stranger Things”, mentioned in an interview, “I would like to be able to watch movies with her in her 30s and have her become Meryl Streep. She has the potential for that to happen.”

Her breakout role in “Stranger Things” saw her portraying a character whose dialogue originally amounted to less than 250 words in the entire first season. But Brown wasn’t fazed by the role being essentially nonverbal. “To convey emotion without speaking was relatively easy for me,” she says.