This article contains spoilers for the current season of Stranger Things.
During an interview with Variety, Millie Bobby Brown sat down to discuss Eleven’s journey in Stranger Things 4, such as what it was like filming Eleven reliving her early years with the Nina Project. Most of the scenes utilize footage of Brown, but some shots involved a younger stand-in, Martie Blair from The Young and the Restless. Brown worked extensively with Blair to capture how the young Eleven would act.
After they finished shooting, they inserted Brown’s face over Blair’s during post-production. In order to sync everything, Brown had to do this process called the Lola machine. For three days she worked in this room and did all of Blair’s scenes, except with just her face. According to Brown, “it was a really interesting process — definitely once in a lifetime.”
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A challenging part about filming the flashback sequences was having to be inside the Nina tank. Brown had to lie in a saltwater tank for 10 to 12 hours a day for a few days. Everyone was moving around her, she couldn’t get out, and she couldn’t hear anyone. So when Brown would get notes from a microphone, she would just hope she was doing what maybe they were saying.
Millie Bobby Brown on Being Young Again
Brown was also asked about what it was like putting herself in the mindset of Eleven at that age. As Brown explains, Eleven was raised in an asylum with a man that she isn’t biologically related to but emotionally and psychologically attached and connected to, so she suffers from severe Stockholm Syndrome. Something that Brown wouldn’t have known at ten years old.
The hardest thing Brown has had to do as a young actor, not just for the show, but her career, was to portray Eleven recovering from dissociative amnesia. A scene that coincides with Jamie Campbell Bower’s orderly character, newly revealed to be villain Vecna, giving this monologue explaining his character’s motive and asking Eleven to join him.
Vol. 2 of Stranger Things 4 will arrive on July 1st. It will be followed by a fifth season, which will also be the show’s last. When asked about what she would like to happen during the final season, Brown responded that she’s going to leave that up to the Duffer Brothers because they’ve always done everything she wanted for Eleven.
