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Millie Bobby Brown is now a household name, but she was on the brink of giving up acting before landing her breakthrough role. The 16-year-old star told Jimmy Fallon that she was in a very “disheartened place” just before Stranger Things came around. Like most actors, MBB experienced a revolving door of rejection early on.
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“I was very disheartened by the rejection,” she said while virtually appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Friday, October 2. “This industry is full of rejection 24/7. I mean you get a lot of ‘no’s’ before you get a ‘yes.’” And it seems one big audition in particular was almost the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“I, then, auditioned for Game of Thrones and I got a ‘no’ for that,” she said. “And then that kind of was when I was like, ‘oh this is really difficult.’ I guess I really wanted that role.” Lucky for us all, she didn’t give up then. “So one of my last goes at this was this Netflix show called Montauk. I auditioned and then like two months later they got back to us and was like, ‘hey we’d love to Skype with you.’” Of course the rest is history as Montauk was renamed Stranger Things.
“I miss playing Eleven so much,” she told Jimmy. “You know, to think it’s been quite a while since I’ve been on-set with my friends.” Millie continued to say that Eleven is “always such a challenge to play.” In these shutdown times she added: “I just miss work to be honest with you.”
Millie can currently be seen illuminating the small screen as the titular role in Enola Holmes. She’s not only receiving brilliant reviews for leading the film, but she put in the work behind the camera as well, serving as a producer.
“The idea really came to my family and I when my older sister, Paige, read the book series,” she said. “After feeling so immersed by the story, and Enola, we wanted to bring this to screen. We found a studio, we found writers, we found a director and just pushed for this film to be made. To have an opportunity like that was amazing.”