Millie Bobby Brown is becoming a bigger star by the day, and that's more than a little worrisome for one of her "Stranger Things" costars who sees himself as a bit of a father figure to her.
David Harbour, who plays Chief Jim Hopper, believes his 13-year-old costar is facing a "career crossroads" and he's worried that social media could be her downfall unless she's careful.
"She is in the crosshairs of something extremely dangerous that nobody seems to be paying attention to," he told The Daily Mail. "I think the developing mind of someone who gets this famous and has still a brain that is not fully developed is an extremely difficult thing to navigate, and I hope that she gets the help that she needs."
David said Millie is destined for Oscars if she can navigate the tricky waters of young fame.
"I know that I try to protect her as much as I can but my hope with Millie and my focus with her is always that I want her to be an artist who, when I'm in the nursing home, she'll bring me her Oscars," he said. "I think that the pitfalls are very deep in terms of this generation, this fame, this Instagram generation of constantly wanting to get likes. Which I never really grew up and the fact that someone with 11 million followers thinking about their persona to the world at 13, 14 years of age is terrifying to me."
He added, "I know she has tremendous potential and my hope is that she can remain grounded and protected as much as possible. Not only from her immediate family, but from her extended family on the show, and also her family of the press as well. I do think that she requires an amount of protection that I don't know if she will be given, but we'll see."
David, 42, never had to worry about social media when he was getting involved in acting.
"When I grew up, my focus of becoming an actor was to express things in myself that were somewhat unpalatable to society," he said. "Therefore, I developed an artist voice that had a point of view. But I was doing a high school play, for my parents' friends and so they thought I was wonderful."
As for Millie, her talent knows no bounds
"I do want her to become Meryl Streep, I do want her to become Daniel Day Lewis, I do want her to become Philip Seymour Hoffman," David said. "Those are the artists that I feel like culturally, I want more in our society. I don't know that I need more of a popularity contest."
Although David is a seasoned actor, he says Millie helps him with his craft. He also gets to show her a side of him that no one else has really ever seen, his nurturing side.
"With Millie, what I get from her is very personal, like it's my own, I've never had a daughter and I don't have children, so what I get from her is this feeling of being a father. What I get from her is this protective feeling of love, a protective love that isn't romantic love," he said. "And I rarely feel that for my life for things other than cats. So to feel that for a young human being, to be that protective and that loving to someone, is very special. She gives me that piece of me, which is very special. I hope she can go very far, I think that she has the potential to go very far."