MILLIE Bobby Brown Kimberly dela Cruz
She may only be 12 years old, but Millie Bobby Brown is already fully aware that effective actors don’t merely take on roles—they commit to them.
So, when she was told that her long, wavy locks would have to be shaved off for the sci-fi-drama series, “Stranger Things,” one of this year’s most talked-about shows from the video-streaming service, Netflix, the young British actor didn’t balk. In fact, she was “very excited” she could hardly wait to get on with it.
“It wasn’t difficult for me at all,” said Millie, who portrays Eleven, a mysterious girl with telekinetic abilities—an escapee from a shady laboratory in early 1980s Indiana, where she was raised and detained as a test subject in a battery of psychological experiments.
“On that day, I knew that Eleven would be born. I felt I had to dedicate myself to this, so I was like, ‘Chop it all off!,’” she said at the recent AsiaPop Comicon Manila 2016 at SMX Convention Center. “I already had an idea about what I wanted to do with her—I had her pictured in my mind.”
In a video that went viral after uploading it to her Twitter account last month, Millie is shown looking giddy on a barber’s chair, as a stylist snips at her hair and runs an electric razor around her head. Once everything was done, she wasted no time getting into character, giving Eleven’s signature death glare straight to the camera.
“My mother was like, ‘No, you’re not doing it! We’ve been growing your hair for the past 11 years!’” she related, laughing. “I was like, ‘OK, you need to chill! This could be a great experience for me.’”
Millie, who began acting in 2013, said she reads a lot of scripts, “like heaps of them.”
She’s also interested in doing comedies. But for some reason, she seems to get cast frequently in thrillers or mystery dramas like “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland” and “Intruders.”
Not that she’s complaining. “I’m open-minded and I’m interested in just about anything,” pointed out the precocious child star. “I don’t really have a dream role; what’s important is that I can connect with it.”
That was exactly how she felt toward Eleven, with whom she doesn’t have much in common: Millie is talkative and bubbly; Eleven rarely speaks, her psyche a mix of innocence and confusion over the world she suddenly finds herself in and the power she wields. Still, she couldn’t help but fall in love with her character.
“We’re opposites, but I do feel sorry for her … Reading about her made me want to be part of this project. I love that she’s different. She can be badass and vulnerable at the same time,” said Millie, who also dreams of pursuing singing once she turns 16. “I don’t have too many lines. I do more crying and broken smiles … It’s all about instinct.”
“Stranger Things,” created by The Duffer Brothers, Matt and Ross, is a charming, well-crafted homage to 1970s and ’80s sci-fi and horror films. Drawing inspiration and weaving plot points and tropes from such classics as “ET: The Extraterrestrial,” “Alien” and “Poltergeist,” the show immediately attracted a considerable following.
The success of the show has Millie and the rest of series’ predominantly young cast traveling around the world. And her visit to the Philippines, she said, has been the “most amazing,” so far. “Not much has changed in my life. I just made a lot more friends, not fans, because they’re so amazing,” she told a raucous crowd of diehards, who came dressed as Eleven—a twee pink dress, a blue windbreaker and a bloodied nose.
“I have a family that keeps me humble. My brother puts me in a headlock and tells me, ‘You’re not a celebrity in this house,’” she jested.
Meanwhile, prodded if a second season is in the works, Millie swore that she has no idea about “Stranger Things’” future.
“For now, I think Eleven has moved to Los Angeles, maybe lounging in a nice mansion.”
At press time, it was announced that the show has been renewed and will be back in 2017.
E-mail apolicarpio@inquirer.com.ph