From birth, Millie Bobby Brown has always had trouble hearing, as she’s partially deaf in one ear. She shared in an interview with Studio 10 that this proved difficult on the set of “Stranger Things,” where she needed to be able to hear directions. “I would have to have [assistant directors] or [production assistants] near me to say ‘action’ because they’d have to say it really loud or make a sign so that I could watch them because I would never be able to hear them,” she explained.
Brown admitted that the Duffer Brothers, who speak in a normal register, were very difficult to hear. However, she had no trouble with another director: “With Shawn Levy, who’s really loud, he goes, ‘Action!,’ and I’m like, ‘I can hear you now.'”
Due to her hearing loss, Brown sometimes isn’t fully aware of what she sounds like when acting or — in another favorite pastime — singing. Still, she doesn’t let the possibility of sounding less-than-perfect deter her from following her passions. She told Variety, “If you like to do it, if you genuinely enjoy doing it, then do it. No one should stop you.”
