Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour's Quotes About Working Together

Stranger Things costars Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour have a long and complicated relationship. The two have worked closely on the show in their roles as Eleven and her adoptive father, Jim Hopper, respectively, for a decade, starting when Brown was 11 years old. Now, Brown and Harbour’s offscreen relationship is being dissected following a report that the British actress filed a bullying and harassment complaint against the Hellboy star ahead of Stranger Things season 5 filming.

Keep scrolling to see everything Brown and Harbour have said about working together on the Netflix series.

What Millie Bobby Brown Said About Working With David Harbour

Brown has gushed about both Harbour and Stranger Things costar Winona Ryder being like another set of parents to her. “On set, they’re like, ‘Stop running, what are you eating, why are you eating that?’” she told Variety of the pair in 2018. “David is like, ‘Another boy?’”

And much like an authentic parent-teen relationship, Brown and Harbour had their share of tense moments as she grew older.

“We went through so many different emotions … we get angry at each other, we are like father and daughter,” Brown, then 14 years old, told the crowd at PaleyFest in Los Angeles in 2018. “We got angry at each other, we would express our feelings on and off the set, and … those scenes were so raw and real that the reward is the scenes.”

Brown has also opened up about Harbour’s protective nature. In a 2016 interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, the Enola Holmes star described Harbour as a “big teddy bear” who made her feel safe while filming.

“He’s funny, he’s serious when he needs to be, and he’s always looking out for me,” she added.

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Brown’s latest comments about Harbour came in an October 2025 issue of Empire Magazine.

“David [Harbour, who plays Hopper] and I connected on another level,” she said. “He always looked out for me, and I always annoyed him like a daughter or a younger sister. I was always trying to climb all over him and he was always rolling his eyes and laughing at me.”

What David Harbour Said About Working With Millie Bobby Brown

Harbour has opened up about feeling like a “parental” figure to not just Brown, but also his other young castmates, including Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin and Sadie Sink.

Initially, Harbour kept himself stern and serious, like his character, he told People in 2020. “[I wanted to] preserve a lot of the character of Hopper off-screen for these kids because I wanted their performances to be as rich as possible,” he explained. “But then as the seasons go on, you just become like a family, and my sort of soft heart gets exposed, and they start to be able to not really take me seriously anymore.”

The Violent Night actor has also described feeling “protective” of Brown.

“Millie and I have always had sort of a special relationship because I knew her when she was so young. I knew her before any of this big fame hit,” he said on “That Scene with Dan Patrick” in 2021. “I have a real protective feeling for her. I have a real, like, worry. I worry about her and the fame and all that she has to struggle with. And I’ve just always felt this kind of deep fatherly affection for her.”

He reiterated his fears at the Critics’ Choice Awards in 2018, saying, “I think she’s in the crosshairs of something extremely dangerous that nobody seems to be paying attention to. As someone who gets this famous and still has a brain that is not fully developed, [this] is an extremely difficult thing to navigate, and I hope that she gets the help that she needs. I know that I try to protect her as much as I can.”

Harbour added, “I want her to be an artist who, when I’m in the nursing home, she can bring me her Oscars.”

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Millie Bobby Brown Filed a Complaint Against David Harbour for Bullying and Harassment

Brown “filed a harassment and bullying claim before they started shooting the last season,” a source told the Daily Mail on November 1, 2025. The insider added that “there were pages and pages of accusations” and that the investigation “went on for months.”

According to the outlet, Brown claimed that Harbour bullied and harassed her on set of the Netflix series. Her claims reportedly did not include any sexual misconduct allegations. Brown reportedly had a representative on the set of Stranger Things season 5, which wrapped filming in December 2024.

Neither Brown, Harbour, nor Netflix have publicly addressed the allegations. Us Weekly reached out to reps for all three for comment.