Casting Director Made a 10-Year-Old Millie Bobby Brown Cry by Saying Shes Too Mature

February 2024 · 4 minute read

Millie Bobby Brown revealed to Allure magazine that she was left in tears at 10 years old after a powerful casting director rejected her for being “too mature.” Before she got the role of a lifetime as Eleven on Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” Brown said the casting director advised her that she’d never make it as an actor because of her maturity.

“I always knew that I was mature and I couldn’t really help that,” Brown said. “Going back to what I said earlier about being kind of very lonely in who I was and feeling like no one was quite like me in school and no one was as mature as I was, [hearing that] was really hard because I thought [maturity] was a good thing. And then being told that it wasn’t, that I wouldn’t make it in this industry, it was so hurtful.”

“I got really down about that,” Brown continued. “My parents told me, ‘Just do this one last audition on tape and then you can go outside and play with your friends again.’ So I said, ‘Okay, yeah, I should do this one because it looks cool.’”

That self-tape audition was for “Stranger Things,” and the rest is history. Brown said she always loved being different characters as a young child, which is why the casting director’s advice rocked her world.

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“I enjoyed being different people because I always struggled with self-identity and knowing who I was,” Brown said. “Even as a young person, I always felt like I didn’t quite belong in every room I was in. I also struggle with loneliness a bit. I always felt quite alone in a crowded room, like I was just one of a kind, like nobody ever really understood me. So I liked [playing] characters that people understood [and] people could relate to because I felt like no one could relate to Millie.”

Brown will reprise Eleven for the fifth and final season of “Stranger Things,” which won’t debut until 2023 or later.

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