Redeem now - The "Stranger Things" breakout star Millie Bobby Brown nearly quit acting when she was 10 years old.
- Brown told Allure that a powerful casting director said she was "too mature" after an audition.
- Her parents encouraged her to do "one last audition," which wound up being for "Stranger Things."
The teen star Millie Bobby Brown said she almost didn't audition for her breakout role as Eleven on "Stranger Things" after she had a terrible experience with a "powerful casting director" who told her she was too mature to make it as a child actor.
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.Brown, now 18, spoke with Allure for the magazine's September cover story and opened up about the hurtful experience she had when she was 10 that left her in tears.
"I always knew that I was mature and I couldn't really help that," Brown told Allure. "Going back to what I said earlier about being kind of very lonely in who I was and feeling like no one was quite like me in school and no one was as mature as I was, [hearing that] was really hard because I thought [maturity] was a good thing."
She added: "It was so hurtful. I got really down about that. My parents told me, 'Just do this one last audition on tape and then you can go outside and play with your friends again.'"
Brown agreed to do one more audition and landed the role of the 11-year-old superpowered girl in Netflix's hit series "Stranger Things" three months later.
This isn't the first time Brown has opened up about her tumultuous experiences in the acting world. In October 2020, the actor appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" and said "the industry is just full of rejection 24/7."
"I was auditioning for commercials, anything really," Brown said. "I then auditioned for 'Game of Thrones,' and I got a no for that. That's kind of when I was like, 'Oh, this is really difficult.'"
Aside from "Stranger Things," Brown has starred in several major feature films like "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" and "Enola Holmes," the sequel of which is set to premiere later this year.
The fifth and final season of "Stranger Things" is in preproduction, and the series remains one of Netflix's most viewed programs.
Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.
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