Millie Bobby Brown Says She Was ‘Not Fine’ on Final Day of Filming Stranger Things: ‘I Cried a Lot’

Millie Bobby Brown wasn’t prepared for how emotional her last day on Stranger Things would be.

The actress, 21, wrapped filming on the Netflix series that skyrocketed her to fame nearly 10 years ago in December, and she said the day was “so emotional” for her during a March 11 interview on the Today show.

“I kind of was like, ‘Oh, I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine.’ And then I think it was a defense mechanism, I think it was my coping,” she told Savannah Guthrie. “And then I realized I was not fine. I cried a lot.”

Brown recalled walking on set for her last day and feeling hyperaware of all the “lasts” she was experiencing.

“[I] was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is my last day. This is the last coffee I’m going to drink, the last mark I’m going to stand on,'” she said. “It all kind of came head-on, really fast.”

Brown marked the end of the chapter in an Instagram post on Dec. 20, where she shared a series of photos from her years on the show and a video of the emotional speech she made on her last day on set, where she compared the day to graduation.

“Isn’t graduation supposed to bring relief? Like you’re glad to leave behind the teachers and classmates. Not me. I am nowhere near ready to leave you guys,” she said in the clip. “I love each and every one of you and I will forever carry the memories and bonds we created together as a family. I love you, thank you.”

In February, Brown spoke to reporters at the L.A. premiere of her Netflix movie The Electric State about the long wait for Stranger Things‘ fifth and final season, and assured fans: “It is worth it, I promise.”

“Be patient,” she said. “Let the Duffers create what they’ve been doing for the last 10 years so beautifully.”

Brown is not the only star who has expressed how emotional the show’s ending has made them. Her costar Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin Henderson, told The Hollywood Reporter it’s “been a pretty jarring thing to realize how quickly it all flew by” as he reflected on his near-decade on the series.

“I remember so many things from that first season so vividly as if it was yesterday. We were so young, and it was such a weird, wild experience that it kind of blended,” he said. “At this point, I’ve almost been doing Stranger Things longer than I haven’t … So I’ll always be really grateful, and coming to terms with letting that go is increasingly difficult, for sure, in a work sense and in a life sense.”