Millie Bobby Brown’s failed audition for an Oscar-nominated superhero movie: “I felt like an actor”
It’s not easy being famous, but becoming one of the most recognisable figures in the world at the age of 12 is a whole different story, something Millie Bobby Brown is too familiar with.
Her breakout role as Eleven in the Netflix megahit Stranger Things catapulted her to a level of fame and fortune most adults could only dream of, and since then, she’s been able to translate this success into a Hollywood career, which has led to a string of movies that could best be described as ‘mediocre’.
From the headache-inducing ‘Monsterverse’ to the bafflingly expensive The Electric State, Brown’s big-screen efforts haven’t exactly set the movie world alight. When your most celebrated movie is Enola Holmes, then you know something has gone wrong. However, had things gone a little differently, she could have been involved with something much, much better.
Speaking with Variety in 2017 (when she was just 13 years old), Brown revealed that she had auditioned for the role of X-23 in James Mangold’s gritty superhero drama/neo-western, Logan. According to Brown, she thought she did a great job.
“I was like, ‘It’s going to be amazing, I’m going to really prepare’, and I sat in my room reading the lines,” she said, “Honestly, for me, I felt so…I felt an actor, in the audition room, hitting Hugh Jackman, and James Mangold sitting right in front of me.”
Released in 2017, Logan was designed as a send-off for Hugh Jackman’s version of Wolverine, who goes by the name Logan when he’s not slicing people limb from limb. The story centres on an older version of the mutant man and his relationship with X-23, also known as Laura, a young mutant girl created from Wolverine’s DNA.
The film received rave reviews across the board, with many praising its R-rated action, something Jackman fought for at great cost, and was even nominated for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ at the Oscars, although it lost out to Call Me By Your Name.
As we all know, Brown did not get the part of X-23, which instead went to Dafne Keen, who was a year younger than the Damsel star, for whom Mangold, Jackson, and Patrick Stewart all pushed heavily for to be included in the film, even when Fox tried to continue the casting process. Was Brown jealous? Not at all: “I watched it; she was incredible,” she said, “It meant so much to me”.
It’s hard to imagine anyone but Keen playing X-23, especially someone as famous as Brown. She undoubtedly would have done a good job, but would her Stranger Things commitments have gotten in the way? Keen recently reprised the part in Deadpool & Wolverine, so there’s every chance that Marvel could bring her back for more appearances in the future. You can make your own mind up as to who would have been better in Logan, but one thing we can say is that neither woman has done too badly in the years since.
