At the age of 12, she landed the role of a girl named Eleven... and six years later the numbers are stacking up very nicely indeed.
Millie Bobby Brown’s piercing stare helped make sci-fi drama Stranger Things a mega-hit.
And you certainly didn’t need to be psychic, as Eleven is, to realise the brightest of Hollywood futures was on the horizon.
Fast forward from 2016 to 2022 and Stranger Things is back for a fourth series, while British star Millie has the world at her feet.
Now 18, she is worth £8million, is a movie star, a brand ambassador for Louis Vuitton, features in a string of big-time ad campaigns... oh, and has her own beauty range to boot.
Showbiz analysts say Millie has a magical mix that fans by the million cannot ignore.
She has an endearing openness and is not afraid to post loved-up snaps with boyfriend Jake Bongiovi – the 20-year-old son of rocker Jon Bon Jovi.
PR guru Mark Borkowski says: “Her success is partly what I call the Harry Potter effect and partly down to her ability to win over Gen Z with social media.
“It’s that perfect storm of factors. Child stars that are part of a franchise like Harry Potter – and Stranger Things – are growing up in front of their fans who are on that journey with them, so they have this captive audience.
“Add to that all the older sci-fi fans and her fanbase is already large. It was once a curse to be a child star but now, with the right management and team around, it doesn’t have to be, as Danielle Radcliffe and Emma Watson have both shown.
“Taking out a full page ad in a magazine no longer works for brands. They need to be able to bring in new, younger audiences to stay relevant and that’s what Millie is able to do with them.
“To Gen Z she is completely relatable – she cares about the things they care about and has struggled with the same things.”
Millie has a whopping 48.5million Instagram followers, over 1.34million subscribers on her YouTube channel and thousands more on TikTok, where she loves to post comical clips.
Female empowerment coach and author Gifty Enright says: “She has that special blend of glamour, talent and substance.
“Brands want to be about substance and be seen to care about real issues and she presents them with that opportunity.
“The fate of people who become stars at a young age is that they risk being frozen into the frame of their youth and they are not allowed to break out of that by growing up, which is unrealistic.
“Also being a woman means Millie has to walk a sort of tightrope – of growing up as a woman in the public eye and staying relatable and not be judged by her looks alone.
“Luckily for her, she came into the public eye for her talent and for the causes she championed. Those things are not transient. As long as she keeps them at the centre of what she does, then she will be fine.”
Millie was born in Spain, where her grandparents ran a restaurant. Mum and dad Kelly and Robert Brown moved to Bournemouth, Dorset, when she was four. Her acting potential was clear from an early age and after moving to the US, the family relocated to Hollywood when an agent spotted her talent.
Millie broke into TV in 2013 with a role on an ABC fantasy series called Once Upon a Time In Wonderland.
She was only 11 when she was cast in Stranger Things in 2015. Millie was nominated for a string of Emmy awards and the movie offers soon began to flow.
In 2019 she made her big screen debut in Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
It was followed by the 2021 sequel Godzilla vs Kong.
Millie has even tried her hand at producing and directing.
As she put it herself, in an interview aged 15: “Youth is getting a great moment right now, so we should just appreciate the amazing young stars that are emerging.”
In 2018, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
The same year she was appointed UNICEF’s youngest-ever Goodwill Ambassador after speaking out against trolling and sharing her experience of being bullied at school.
Though she is still a teenager, Millie’s earnings make for dizzying reading. It’s estimated she netted £24,000 an episode during the first two seasons of Stranger Things – more than £400,000.
From season three onwards, reports suggest Millie may have earned £199,000 an episode.
Two years ago she played the title role of Enola Holmes alongside Henry Cavill as Sherlock. She was also listed as a producer on the Netflix production.
American gossip site TMZ claimed she earned £4.8million from the film and a hotly-anticipated sequel due out this year should land her even more. Millie is also rumoured to have made nearly £800,000 for her role as Madison Russell in Godzilla, as well as 5% on merchandising.
And the bucks don’t stop there, thanks to a string of ad campaigns for big names such as Citigroup and Calvin Klein.
Millie has made a point of making every campaign she takes on have meaning. Her 2018 collaboration with EA Games on the video game The Sims 4 was centred around a positivity challenge where characters were encouraged to perform kind tasks.
Last year she directed her first coming-of-age short film, about growing up in the public eye, as part of a powerful brand partnership with Samsung.
In 2019 she launched her beauty and skincare range Florence, by Mills. It is named after her gran.
Proceeds go to the Olivia Hope Foundation which helps research into childhood cancer – a subject close to Millie’s heart after losing a friend to leukaemia.
She has also launched a collection of casual shoes with Converse.
But right now, it is Stranger Things, which had its global launch on Friday, which occupies Millie’s attention.
In the new series by scriptwriters Matt and Ross Duffer, Eleven relocates to California with the family of Joyce Byers, played by Winona Ryder. She finds herself taunted by school bullies – something Millie is quick to relate to.
She told an audience at the Stranger Things premiere: “I think what’s really nice is that the Duffer Brothers were shining a light on what kids go through during high school.
“It’s not an easy time especially for young girls out there struggling with their identity and who they are, with the influences of everyone around them. So it’s really nice to be portraying that storyline for me because it’s influential and it definitely helps me get through that time too.”
The projects, meanwhile, are lining up thick and fast for Millie.
Next year she is an executive producer of the Netflix fantasy film Damsel – and stars in it.
Millie plays a princess. Fitting, for a future queen of Hollywood.
