Pull yourself together.
Not forgiving Papa,
was kind of like, "Whoa, this is what we are resulting in.
This is the conclusion of that relationship
and she's not forgiving him."
It was a big revelation of who Eleven is.
- Yeah. - And where does she
go from there?
With that kind of coldness?
- Yeah. - You know?
It's kind of very much a Dr. Brenner move
that she pulled.
- She did, she did. - Yeah.
It's hard, it's really hard.
We actually went on a 45 minute walk that day.
Do you remember?
Yeah.
Took us really long, we walked to set
from base camp it was 45 minutes
in the middle of the desert.
Yeah.
We walked because we were really sad that day.
It was a very sad day for us both.
You know, I honestly love Millie Bobby Brown.
I feel paternal toward her.
And-
You know, I know that what I said in the scene,
Matthew Modine is the same thing that Dr. Brenner said,
that everything that I've done with Millie
was the best I could for her,
for her good, for your life.
And so that's truthful.
It's a truthful emotion.
And I think the Duffer Brothers know that and knew that.
- And so those were the- - The words chosen.
Yeah.
That, you know, we talk about father and daughter
and finding her autonomy.
And I obviously didn't wanna necessarily leave Papa.
And you don't ever really wanna leave your dad,
but you have to, to find that autonomy
within your life, and not listen to men
and really strive to be a woman, finally.
How far Papa?
Farther than we've ever gone before.
She's thinking about
her childhood and everything.
She was raised by him.
Everything that she knew was Papa.
He taught her everything
in order how to channel her emotions,
channel her anger, channel her powers,
how to control them, how to provoke them,
how to keep them suppressed.
Everything that she knows is from him.
I think that when you say goodbye
to that huge majority of your life,
because a new one has to start,
it's a huge transition.
I think she was just kind of thinking about her childhood
in, what, a 30 second scene.
And how does she walk away from this, feeling empowered?
Well, I've said from the beginning,
when we began working on the show
that you don't believe
that you're doing something that's evil,
you're doing something that you think
is going to be beneficial.
And obviously what he'd found with the character Eleven,
was somebody who had incredible gifts and love.
I often thought about the experiment with the cat.
When she crushes the Coke can
that in some weird way in Brenner's imagination
that by putting the cat in the room
was a kind of test, that would she crush the cat?
Was she capable of that?
And she wasn't.
And so for me, I always felt that she passed the test.
That she had compassion, that she had love.
And so when she escaped from the laboratory,
what my concern and my fear was,
I know how powerful she is,
what happens if she gets in the hands
of someone that's truly evil,
that will take her and exploit her
to do things that are bad?
So, that was my motivation as an actor,
to find her, to try to make sure
that she wouldn't do harm.
Even though I knew that in her heart
that she had passed the test,
she didn't crush the cat.
Don't talk about Hopper in front of me.
I don't like it.
I know you don't.
I'll make it quick.
I go, "No, no, no, no, no."
I think they're very two different relationships, very,
two masculine energies that are in Eleven's life,
including Mike, they're very influential in her life.
One of them, Hopper, being someone
who took care of her, protected her.
And they have a friendship,
a friendship that they've created
while Eleven's been out of the asylum
and kind of needed protection
and needed that love and support.
And he gave that to her.
But on the other hand, you have Papa and Eleven,
he knew her from baby.
He took her out of my mother's arms.
Yeah, I delivered that child.
Yeah, so it's kind of like, there's no bond like that.
There's no connection that she could yearn for more
than the one that she has with Papa,
because that's the most authentic.
He knew her at her purest form.
I don't know.
Yeah, the other guy drinks too much coffee
and eats too much donuts.
He's probably got
- a drink a problem, smoking. - He contemplates too much.
You know? That-
- Then there Dr. Brenner. - He's in Russia.
- Yeah. - What are you gonna do?
She could never forget the smell of my aftershave.
No.
Or the way that I tied a knot on my tie.
Right, exactly.
These were indelible experiences.
- No, I know. - And sensory experience
in her life.
And I loved the traumas of crushing cats and things.
The cleanliness of the hospital.
- Oh, I loved it. - Yeah.
It always smelled like bleach.
Yeah, his cabin probably smelled like dead gophers.
- Yes, it did. - Yeah.
And old beer.