‘Stranger Things’: Millie Bobby Brown Credits Miley Cyrus Classic for Inspiring Netflix Performance

Matt and Ross Duffer were inspired by 1980s pop culture when they created Stranger Things, but Millie Bobby Brown drew from a very different source to craft her performance on the Netflix series. During a stop on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Friday, Brown, 18, said she was inspired by Miley Cyrus’ performance on Hannah Montana. Brown stars as Eleven on Stranger Things, earning two Emmy nominations for her role.

“I watched Bugsy Malone and The Godfather when I was like 8,” Brown told Fallon. “And I was like, but Hannah Montana is Oscar-nominating. It’s so good. Hannah Montana is the best. Like the film, everything. Everything about it is amazing. And I got the American accent.”

Brown told Fallon that she always had a talent for doing impressions. When she watches a character, she can immediately start recreating an accent. “As long as I watched it for long enough, I kind of get it to somewhat of a T,” she said. Brown showed off her talent by impersonating Wynonna Rider and Inventing Anna subject Anna Delvey.

“I was in the hotel lobby the other day and they were like, ‘Miss Brown, we have to run your card again,’” Brown recalled as she recreated Delvey’s unique Russian-German accent. “I was like, ‘Run it again! It must be your system.’” Brown then said the Inventing Anna quote “Why do you look so poor?” in Delvey’s accent.

This was not the first time Brown discussed the importance of Hannah Montana for her career, notes E! News. In March 2020, Brown told Cyrus herself that she “wanted” her job. “Like, I didn’t know how to get your job but I was like, ‘I want to be like, you know, Hannah Montana. I don’t know how to do it,’” Brown told Cyrus on Bright Minded. “And then I realized it was an actual job. And I was like, ‘I want to do that. That sounds fun.’ I didn’t even know you could get money for it. I was like, ‘I’ll do it for free.’”

Brown made her acting debut in ABC’s Once Upon a Wonderland in 2013, playing a young Alice. Her life changed overnight when Stranger Things‘ first season was released on Netflix in 2016. The show’s fourth season will finally debut on May 27, almost three years after Season 3 was released. Netflix split the season in two, so the second half will be released on July 1. The season will only feature nine episodes. The show was also renewed for a fifth and final season.

“The main part and the slogan of this storyline is it’s the beginning of the end,” the Enola Holmes star told Fallon of Season 4, notes IndieWire. “We really have to dig deep into her beginning and how she became who she is with the people around her, and how to gain that autonomy and become this woman on her own. So this storyline this season really digs into that.” She went on to predict that there will be “lots of crying, lots of laughing” among fans after they watch the new episodes.