Millie Bobby Brown Revisits Eleven’s Trauma In ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4

This was not how my interview piece with Millie Bobby Brown was supposed to go. Not that Ms. Brown did anything wrong. In fact, she was delightful during our conversation earlier this week. Instead, after perhaps almost 100 previous successful recordings, we’re going to have to blame Zoom for not saving the recording. Thank you error 404. Yep, we’re going old, old school with the “Stranger Things” star, from our quickly scribbled notes afterward.

Oh, but, for those who have not watched season four, be warned, major spoilers ahead.

READ MORE: ‘Stranger Things’ finally returns with an entertaining but scattered fourth season [Review]

The now 18-year-old actress has been quite busy of late. After wrapping season four of the blockbuster Netflix series she shot the sequel to “Enola Holmes” and is currently in production on another film for the streamer, “Damsel.” Brown says she expects it will be quite a bit before “Stranger Things” season 5, the final season, even starts filming, as the Duffer Brothers haven’t even begun writing it yet. And, following “Damsel” she’s looking forward to working in something of a real break into her schedule.

The latest iteration of “Stranger Things” saw Eleven (or Jane as she’s known in public), experience the perils of attending a High School in Southern California. As one would expect, Eleven is having problems adjusting to her new surroundings and has painted a much rosier picture of her friendship circle to her boyfriend back in Hawkins, Mike (Finn Wolfhard).

Brown says she liked that Eleven wasn’t just a “superhero” (one without her powers at the time) and having everyday problems like any teenage girl. She also appreciated a quite dramatic scene where Eleven confronts Mike for not saying “I love you” to her. A sign, in her eyes, that their now long-distance love affair may be fading. Whether that is truly the case? She reminds everyone paying attention, “There are still two more episodes left.”

A majority of Eleven’s time this season, however, is spent in an underground facility in the middle of Nevada where Martin Brenner aka “Poppa” (Matthew Modine) has been recruited to help restore her powers. As the more virtuous Sam Owens (Paul Reiser) looks on suspiciously, Eleven is forced to relive traumatic memories from her time with “Poppa” and the other gifted children at the Hawkins lab.

A majority of these scenes feature the now much older Brown in those moments, but Martie Blair was often a physical stand-in as the younger Eleven. In post-production, Brown’s face was digitally added to Blair’s body. Not only did Brown work with Blair to keep their performance as aligned as possible, but sat in what she describes as a “contraption” with a green screen to capture her facial performance as Eleven’s “younger” self.

Those episodes were also quite tough for Brown who says she often felt “pulled and thrown around” – quite literally – as Eleven wrestled with her hidden trauma.

For those curious, Brown says that while the Duffer Brothers didn’t tell her Eleven’s arc for the season, she did know that Jamie Campbell Bower was playing One who also turns out to be the big baddie of the season, Vecna in the Upside Down. And she also felt knowing that helped inform her performance.

And while Brown isn’t part of the popular scene where the seminal 80’s ballad “Running Up That Hill” is used, she’s thrilled that the show put a spotlight on Kate Bush‘s music. Oh, and we are too.

“Stranger Things” is available on Netflix. The final two episodes of season 4 will drop on July 7.