‘Stranger Things’: Millie Bobby Brown Hopes for a Hopper and Joyce Romance in Season 3

By Marc Malkin

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – It’s really beginning to sound like Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers could be headed for a romance during “Stranger Things’” upcoming third season.

Just last week, David Harbour told Variety that he would love to see his character couple up with Winona Ryder’s character. “From the very beginning, I thought that these are two tortured, messed up, beautiful people who are like puzzle pieces that can’t stand each other but actually need each other,” he explained.

And now, Millie Bobby Brown is letting fans know that she is totally “shipping Jopper.”

“I can’t say anything about this,” Brown told Variety on Monday night at an FYC screening of the Netflix series in New York City when told what Harbour had said. “This is so bad.”

But she couldn’t resist adding, “Listen, I would love for them to get together. Jopper is like my inspiration in life.”

“ and David Harbor are like my parents,” she continued. “On set, they’re like, ‘Stop running, what are you eating, why are you eating that?’ David is like, ‘Another boy?’ And in the show, if they rekindle, that means Will and Eleven will be step-siblings. I would love that because Noah [Schnapp] is my boy best friend.”

Too cute.

Brown also confirmed Harbour’s assertion that season 3 was going to be darkest season yet. “It’s definitely going to get darker,” she said.

During a Q&A hosted by MTV journalist Josh Horowitz after the screening, Brown said that she’s also hoping that Eleven loses some — if not all — of her psychokinetic and telepathic powers.

“I think Eleven should sacrifice herself in some way,” she said. “That’s how I kind of want that situation to go. I want to have her really sacrifice her powers. If Eleven loses her powers, is she as powerful just as a character? I think that would be very cool. I want to build her to be a strong person without her powers…But right now it’s very about her powers and I think taking that away slowly could be cool.”

Brown wants Eleven to truly experience being a girl. “I don’t think she knows how to be a girl,” she said. “She’s been looking like a boy for a very long time. They thought she was a boy in season 1. I mean, some of my friends now are like, ‘The first time I saw you I thought you were a dude.”

And then without missing a beat, the 14-year-old two-time Emmy nominee smiled, “Well, look at me now!”