Is it Christopher Nolan’s fault that Millie Bobby Brown doesn’t watch movies?
Plenty of actors refuse to watch their own movies because they hate seeing themselves onscreen, but Millie Bobby Brown caused a stir among cinephiles when she admitted she doesn’t watch movies at all.
In certain respects, there’s nothing wrong with that, because not everyone is obsessed with the theatrical experience or devouring as many films as possible. On the other hand, it stood out as unusual coming from someone who’s spent most of their life as a working actor in the industry.
Then again, maybe that’s why she doesn’t bother. Either way, with viewing habits constantly changing and evolving, and not always for the better, it makes sense in a strange way that a young star who’s spent almost their entire career churning out unremarkable Netflix originals wouldn’t have a vested interest in cinema.
Brown has only appeared in six live-action features, and four of them were Netflix blockbusters, with the other two being Godzilla vs Kong crossovers. Her only other role in the last decade has been in the streaming service’s Stranger Things, but did Christopher Nolan cause her to swear off cinema?
At first glance, that sounds preposterous, and if there’s anyone who can draw a lapsed cinema fan back to the multiplex, Nolan would be near the top of the list. However, Brown did outline a major reason why she stayed away from the big screen, and the vaunted filmmaker’s name was plastered all over it.
“I have a rule,” she explained. “If I don’t cry at the trailer, I don’t see it in a movie theatre. So I haven’t gone to the movies since Dunkirk.” She said that in July 2019, a full 24 months after Nolan’s war epic was released, so it seems fair to infer that by that point, she hadn’t set foot in a cinema for two years.
Four years later, she was even more up front. “I don’t watch movies,” Brown offered. “People come up to me and say, ‘You should definitely watch this movie, it would change your life’. And I’m like, ‘How long do I have to sit there for?’ Because my brain and I don’t even like sitting for my own movies.”
People who love reading between the lines that may or may not even be there have theorised that Brown’s stance has infuriated her Stranger Things co-star and lifelong lover of film, Winona Ryder, who railed against the new generation: “There are a few that are just not interested in movies. Like, the first thing they say is, ‘How long is it?'”
For talking’s sake, let’s plunge through the looking glass. Brown made it clear she wouldn’t see a film in a cinema unless the trailer brought her to tears, and nothing in the two years post-Dunkirk fulfilled that remit. Was Nolan’s promotional campaign so heart-wrenching and emotional that it swore her off watching features for good? Maybe, maybe not, who knows, and it’s best not to think too hard about it.
If Keanu Reeves thinks people should be allowed to say that two plus two equals five as long as they’re happy, then who’s going to argue with him? As strange as it sounds to many people, some folks just don’t like watching movies, regardless of it’s Nolan’s fault or not.
