At twelve, Brooklyn Davey Norstedt celebrated her birthday with a waffle bar, a wall of Christmas lights styled after Joyce Byers’ living room, and her dad dressed as Hopper while she went as Eleven. Four years later, she’s the actual voice of Eleven.
“Stranger Things: Tales from ’85” premieres on Netflix on April 23, and Norstedt is the young actor stepping into the role Millie Bobby Brown made a household name. She’s carrying the animated Eleven on her own, with an entirely new voice cast around her, and the throughline from fan to lead is one of the sweetest behind-the-scenes stories of the year.
She’s been acting on camera since 2018, but voiceover came later. During the 2020 pandemic she took an online class and, as she told What’s on Netflix this week, fell in love with the booth. “It’s just you alone in a booth and you get to use your imagination even more than on camera work,” she said. In November 2022 she got an audition for an untitled Netflix and Flying Bark project. The characters had codenames. She had no idea she was reading for Eleven.
The callback came in March 2023. The offer came in May. By then she’d been a declared superfan of the series for years. “I have been a SUPERfan of the show since I was eleven years old,” she told the outlet. She collected the Funko Pops, the costumes, the props. Her room was done up in ’80s merch. Eleven was always her favorite.
That connection is doing real work on screen. Showrunner Eric Robles, the “Glitch Techs” and “Fanboy & Chum Chum” producer steering the spinoff, gave her a single direction early in the booth. “Be Eleven.” Simple, but Norstedt said the note landed exactly when she needed it. “This was my first big project, so going into it, of course, I was nervous. I wanted to do a good job, and I didn’t want to let anyone down.”
Her read on the character leans into Eleven’s warmer side. “I really wanted to bring out that softness and vulnerability to her,” Norstedt said. “Even though she is so strong, she is such a sweetheart at her core.” The animated Eleven, in the winter of 1985, is living with Hopper and trying to pass for normal. Powers included, normal doesn’t hold.
The rest of the party fills in around her. Luca Diaz plays Mike. Benjamin Plessala is Will. Braxton Quinney takes Dustin, and Elisha “EJ” Williams plays Lucas. Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, who most recently appeared in the Netflix film “In Your Dreams,” voices Max. Jeremy Jordan, a Broadway name, steps in for Steve Harrington. Brett Gipson plays Hopper. Odessa A’zion voices Nikki Baxter, a punk-leaning transfer student built as a new entry point for viewers who haven’t seen the live-action show. Robert Englund, Janeane Garofalo, and Lou Diamond Phillips round out the adult cast.
Norstedt previously played Amber in Apple TV+’s 2022 miniseries “WeCrashed.” Voicing Eleven is a huge step up, and she’s clearly savoring it. “It’s so surreal to see the parallels between then and now, not only being a part of this project, but playing Eleven. It’s the definition of a dream come true for me.”
Netflix held a limited theatrical run of the first two episodes on April 18, with screenings at New York’s Paris Theater and Philadelphia’s Netflix House among 34 U.S. venues. The full ten-episode first season, with episodes reportedly running between 24 and 28 minutes each, drops Thursday on the streamer.
