Millie Bobby Brown Nearly Quits Acting After ‘Game of Thrones’ Rejection

“I think I was just very disheartened by the rejection, which is something I tell everyone,” Millie Bobby Brown told Jimmy Fallon during an interview on “The Tonight Show.”

The 16 years old actress was rejected after she tried to take part in the Game of Thrones series.

Millie Bobby, who later got a role in Netflix’s Stranger Things as Eleven, was getting her start in acting when she tried out for the Game of Thrones series. The role she auditioned for was the feisty Lyanna Mormont, which was eventually performed by Bella Ramsey.

“I got a no for that,” she said. “That’s kind of when I was like, ‘Oh, this is really difficult,’ and I guess I really wanted that role.”

Millie Bobby Brown, added, “Like, this industry is just full of rejection, 24/7. You get far more noes — a lot of noes — before you get a yes. I was auditioning for commercials, for anything, really. I then auditioned for ‘Game of Thrones’ and I got a ‘no’ for that. Then that’s kind of when I was like, ‘Oh, this is really difficult,’ because I guess I really wanted that role.” 

Brown then went on to audition for a Netflix show called Montauk, saying that try-out was her last go at kickstarting her acting career. “Two months later, they just got back to us and was like ‘We’d love to Skype with you,” she said. “I Skyped with them and, you know, the rest is history, of course. We then named the show Stranger Things, but Montauk was definitely the one that gave me that kind of hope of doing it all again.”

Brown’s Stranger Things co-star Finn Wolfhard narrated his own story earlier this year of nearly quitting acting before landing a character in the show. The 17-year-old actor said he almost didn’t send in an audition tape for the part of Mike Wheeler.

Millie Bobby Brown is best known for her Emmy-nominated role as Eleven in “Stranger Things,” and most recently for starring opposite Henry Cavill in the latest rendition of the Sherlock Holmes story, “Enola Holmes” (currently on Netflix).