Nowadays, it’s hard not to know Millie Bobby Brown and her remarkable role as “Eleven” in the Netflix series “Stranger Things”. However, one of the most impressive aspects of her is how she performed in the first season, even as a 12-year-old girl. While some people spend decades on studies, Millie needed only a few years of professional acting experience to be chosen for one of the most complex characters of the series. What makes her so special? That’s what we’ll explore in this article.
If we want to understand an actor’s performance, we first need to understand their character. In season one, Eleven is a child who lived almost her whole life in a lab, being tested and controlled by adults around her. We also can’t forget about her powers, an aspect that still surprises her. Just from this summary, we can already figure out that she’s a girl who has never had stable connections with other people, doesn’t trust easily, and hasn’t developed strong communication skills. However, her character has really intense emotions like fear, curiosity, and anger.
Here’s the first thing Millie did well: she didn’t contradict the character. One example is that Millie appears to be an outgoing and energetic person, but Eleven isn’t like that. She knew how to separate her own emotions and personality from the role, something that really mattered for character building. So instead of being expressive and active like an extroverted child, Millie acted more reserved and occupied less space, showing the audience the social discomfort of Eleven.
Keeping with this idea, Millie had a lot of consistency in her portrayal of the character. Since Eleven spent almost her whole life in a lab, Millie didn’t portray Eleven as a completely different person after some weeks out of the lab. On the contrary, Millie kept that curious but cautious behavior across multiple episodes, staying true to the way Eleven’s past affected her psychology. That illustrates how Millie gradually showed Eleven’s social skills.
Another strong aspect of Millie’s performance is her non-verbal communication. Eleven has a small vocabulary and doesn’t speak much throughout the whole season, but the audience still understands her intense feelings. Millie uses powerful facial expressions without being exaggerated. We can also see how expressive her gaze is. Together, these two aspects enable the audience to understand her emotions. Eleven also carries a characteristic body language: she adopts a guarded posture and keeps a distance from other characters, reflecting her social isolation.
The following section contains spoilers for Season 1 of Stranger Things.
One remarkable moment of Season 1 of Stranger Things is when Eleven goes to Mike’s place. As mentioned earlier, Eleven doesn’t use verbal communication a lot, but when she’s in the house, her eyes carefully move all around the room. Also, in Mike’s bedroom, she grabs objects and takes in her surroundings, and the audience still understands what’s happening, without a single line of dialogue. Another example is Eleven’s interactions with Doctor Brenner. Every time Brenner was around, Millie would become even more restrained. She looked at him as if she was being constantly tested and stiffened her posture, expressing how afraid she was of him.
So, ultimately, what makes Millie special is her ability to commit fully to the character. By setting aside her own personality and carefully respecting Eleven’s development, she created a performance that felt authentic and convincing from beginning to end. Furthermore, she relied heavily on her non-verbal ability, bringing the character to life and showing the audience that Eleven communicates more with her gaze and posture. This way, we can conclude that Millie’s performance was convincing because she understood not only who Eleven was, but also how her experiences shaped her behavior.
