Did Millie Bobby Brown lose her British accent?

Millie Bobby Brown, the 19-year-old actress best known for her role as Eleven in the hit Netflix series ‘Stranger Things’, appeared on ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’ on Thursday night and left some fans puzzled by her accent.

The British star, who was born in Spain and moved to the UK when she was four, spoke with an American accent during the interview, prompting some viewers to wonder if she had lost her original accent or was putting on a different one for the show.

Some fans took to social media to express their confusion and disappointment, saying that they missed her British accent and that she sounded “too American”. Others defended her, saying that she probably adapted her accent to suit her audience and that it was normal for actors to switch between accents.

Brown, who has been living in the US for several years, has previously explained that she learned to speak with an American accent by watching Disney Channel shows. She also said that she sometimes gets confused by her own accent and that she speaks differently depending on who she is talking to.

“I can’t even really think about it anymore, because I go back to England and I’m speaking like this, and then I go to America and I’m speaking like this,” she said in a 2019 interview with Wired. “And then I go to my dad and I’m like, ‘Alright, dad, how are you?’ And then I go to my mum and I’m like, ‘Hi, mum.’ It’s weird.”

Brown is not the first British actor to face criticism for changing their accent. Emma Watson, Hugh Laurie, and Christian Bale are among the celebrities who have been accused of sounding too American or losing their Britishness. However, some experts say that accent changes are natural and inevitable, especially for people who live in different countries or work in different industries.

“Accents are not fixed, they are fluid and dynamic,” Dr. Dominic Watt, a senior lecturer in forensic speech science at the University of York, said in 2017. “They change throughout our lifetimes, for a variety of reasons. Part of the reason why people might sound more American is to do with identity and fitting in with the people around you.”