Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour took the NYCC stage to share Stranger Things stories — and a few secrets from season 2.
The stars of Netflix’s Stranger Things also spilled plenty of behind-the-scenes hilarity (and real life facts — David Harbour is a D&D nerd!) Here’s what we learned from New York Comic Con:
Nothing phases Millie Brown
The effervescent Brown admits that “finding Eleven” through her sparse dialogue was challenge — “She’s got to talk a bit more. She’s just got to,” she says. “I’m like, talk! Talk, Eleven!” But most of the tasks Brown had to tackle as the taciturn telepath were no problem at all.
The actress says that she had fun performing her violent outbursts of telekinesis (“I know what to do to break someone’s neck!” she laughs) and immediately took charge of Eleven’s pesky nosebleeds.
“I would call action,” she recalls, priding herself on her timing as the cameras rolled and the blood leaked out of Eleven’s nose.
Winona Ryder rocks
Both Brown and David Harbour expressed admiration for Winona Ryder, who stars as the bereft Joyce Beyers. Harbour found his first Stranger Things friend in the series’ biggest star.
“We had like a five hour dinner, and I just fell in love with her,” he says. Harbour admits that he was “a total fanboy” of Ryder from her work in the ’80s, “but she’s also lovely, smart, [and] hugely intelligent.”
“She’s like a walking encyclopedia,” Brown agrees. The young actress also considers Ryder one of her best friends the series. “I love her sneeze!” she says, and displayed a ring Ryder had given her for her birthday on set.
Millie wouldn’t make it in the ’80s
Though Brown expressed her enthusiasm for the distinctly retro setting — “I really like it now, I really want to live back in the ’80s!” — it became clear that she was a little out of her depth.
“Why don’t we just call Mike on the phone?” she remembers wondering, to which Harbour reminded her that phones as Brown knows them didn’t exist in the ’80s.
“It wasn’t as good as it was in Stranger Things,” he says. “I lived it!”
David Harbour tried to be method… and kind of failed
Early in filming, Harbour says he took a “risk” around his young co-stars. “[I got] my chair away from them, I [didn’t] want to talk to them,” he says. “I wanted to preserve that feeling of intimidation — which of course has completely dissolved by now.”
Millie Brown seconded that motion. “He turned out to be this lovable person with a ton of friends who are kids!” she adds. Harbour apparently helped Brown’s little sister hold a talent show on set (they juggled together!) thoroughly banishing the idea of Harbour as anything but an adorable softie.
The Upside Down is not as cool in real life
According to Harbour, the terrifying realm of the Upside Down doesn’t quite measure up in real life.
“It looks really silly on set,” he says, recounting that the set was festooned with pulsating purple piping that sounded “like you’re in a bad haunted house.” The eerie spores floating through the air came from a set hand pulling “dandelion stuff” from a pillow case into a fan, and even the Demigorgon was less than intimidating.
Played by a guy in a suit named Mark, the ravenous beast just had “a lot of green dots on him,” Brown says. Harbour recalls seeing him between scenes, strapped to cooling fans.
“It was the least scary thing I’ve ever seen,” he says.
Nobody saw the Barb thing coming
The first audience question called for “Justice for Barb,” giving Harbour the opportunity to express his surprise at the character’s popularity.
“I think it’s very deserved,” he says. “[Barb is] as iconic as any of us.”
Harbour also admitted that he and Brown “do know a little” about Stranger Things season 2, and Barb’s role therein.
“We do deal with the loose ends, and we do deal with the internet rage over Barb’s death,” he says. But sadly, “I can assure you that Barb is very much dead.”
Speaking of ‘Stranger Things’ season 2…
When asked about the impact of Hopper’s backstory — he lost his young daughter to cancer before the series began — Harbour hinted that there may be more to the story than a simple tragedy.
“I feel like he is truly broken in a way that cannot be healed,” Harbour says, emphasizing that Hopper feels tremendous guilt over his daughter’s death. That guilt seems to have been warranted: the actor hints that the subject of Sarah will be further explored in Stranger Things season 2.
Harbour said the same of the love triangle between Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve, while Brown added that with Stranger Things season 2, “anything could happen. But I’m okay with Stancy!”
Another audience member asked what kind of drama might develop if Hopper came to adopt Eleven, and Harbour seemed familiar with the subject.
“I would say that there would be a rich emotional arc there!” he says, tellingly. But though he wouldn’t get more specific, he did add that “we did get the first couple of scripts, and it’s insane.”
And though Millie Brown declined to say whether or not she has a role in the next season, she did say that she had read the scripts. “It’s gonna be incredible,” she promises.