Millie Bobby Brown Chokes Up Reading Final Goodbye with David Harbour During Stranger Things Finale Table Read: ‘You Became My Dad’
Brown was emotional as she looked at Harbour while reading their final scene together.
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NEED TO KNOW
- Millie Bobby Brown got choked up as she read the final conversation between her and David Harbour’s characters in the Stranger Things finale
- In the new Netflix documentary, One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5, Brown and Harbour, along with the rest of the cast, are seen at the final table read
- Brown, 21, paused to look at Harbour, 50, from across the room as she read her emotional final words to him
Millie Bobby Brown was emotional as she read the ending for her Stranger Things character for the first time.
In the new Netflix documentary, One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5, footage is shown of the cast at the table read for the final episode, which premiered on Dec. 31. When it came time for Eleven (Brown) to go to the Abyss and battle Vecna one last time, she had an emotional moment with Hopper (David Harbour), and the feelings were high in the room as Brown, 21, read through the scene.
“When you found me in the woods, I was just a kid,” Brown said, reading the scene between Eleven and Hopper. “I was scared. I didn’t understand this world, didn’t understand people. But you took me in and you taught me.”
She then paused to look at Harbour, 50, across the room with a sad smile on her face. He looked back at her as she choked up and said, “You protected me, you raised me, you became my dad.”
Earlier in the table read, Harbour had his own passionate response to a scene for Hopper and Eleven. As co-creator Ross Duffer set the scene for the moment where it seemed Hopper had shot Eleven multiple times, Harbour said, “No, no, no, no. Holy s—.”
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The tension between Eleven and Hopper was evident throughout the final season, and Ross and Matt Duffer told PEOPLE that they wanted things to be “messy and complicated.”
“It’s just a dynamic that we really wanted to explore, which is this dynamic of a parent and their child, who’s actually no longer really a child anymore, is actually a young adult, becoming an adult — and how do you deal with that?” Matt said. “How do you deal with letting them go, giving them independence, when, especially Hopper, feels protective of her?”
Hopper’s “greatest fear” is that “Eleven wouldn’t be able to live happily and that she would die at the end of all this,” Ross added.
Brown and Harbour have had a close on-screen relationship ever since the show’s premiere in 2016. But ahead of season 5’s premiere, The Daily Mail reported that Brown had filed a bullying and harassment complaint against Harbour. The report, which was filed before filming began on season 5, allegedly included “pages and pages of accusations,” and Brown had a representative with her on set as a result.
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At the Los Angeles premiere days later, though, both the actors had nothing but lovely things to say about each other. “I’ve obviously had a really special bond with David because we have a father-daughter relationship, and we do every scene together,“ Brown told Entertainment Tonight.
“It’s been so special to have him along the journey for me,” she said, while Harbour told the outlet of Brown, “I adore her.”
One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5 is now streaming on Netflix.