Stranger Things' Millie Bobby Brown on the pressures of being a solo action star with Netflix hit Damsel
Trying new things is the only real way we can know what we're capable of.
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Things are going well for Millie Bobby Brown. The final season of Stranger Things is finally back in production, even if we don’t know when it will actually come out, and her new film, Damsel, is shaping up to be a big hit for Netflix. However, the transition from TV to film wasn’t quite as smooth as we might think.
Being the main star of a film like Damsel meant there was a lot more pressure on Millie Bobby Brown to keep herself healthy and fit each day. She said in a recent interview that on Stranger Things “I rely on 40 other cast members to show up every day. [In Damsel] I had to show up every day, you know. I can’t get sick. You can’t get injured. You can’t be sad. You have to go. You have to show up.”
It's something that might be easy to overlook when discussing the differences between working with an ensemble cast versus having an entire production relying solely on you. If she got injured during one of the film’s intense action scenes, production would effectively stop. If she had a bad day in the office, there aren’t any other actors that can help carry the scene. It all falls to her.
That pressure was something that drew Brown to the Netflix role in the first place. In both Enola Holmes and Stranger Things, she “can rely on her other cast members, but with this, I knew I couldn’t and I wanted to prove to myself that I could.” The risk has clearly paid off for both star and streamer as Damsel has become one of Netflix’s biggest hits of the year so far. Hopefully, it encourages Brown to step out of her comfort zone a bit more going forward.
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