Millie Bobby Brown Reveals Her Relationship With Henry Cavill
Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill are discussing their relationship, which is like two adult siblings who like to poke fun at each other.
Enola Holmes 2 is now streaming on Netflix, and star Millie Bobby Brown, who just turned 18, is talking about “healthy” relationship with her superstar co-star, 39-year-old Henry Cavill. The British actor, best known for playing Superman in the DC Cinematic Universe, plays Sherlock Holmes, the big brother to Millie’s Enola, who struggles to acknowledge her own investigative abilities, especially when she ends up getting in over her head. Before you start thinking that their relationship may be romantic, the pair make it clear that it’s nothing of the sort; rather, the two appear to get along almost like brother and sister, although Millie says Henry treats her more as an equal, more than a younger sibling.
Henry Cavill has four brothers and no sisters, and admits to not knowing exactly how to relate to one. In an interview with Deadline, Millie Bobby Brown says the pair have fostered a “real adult relationship” since first working together on the first Enola Holmes in 2020, although she says Henry does set personal boundaries. “Like a really good friendship, a really healthy one. He has terms and conditions with me. I’m not allowed to ask about his personal life,” she says.
When she gets too personal with the intensely private – and famously single – Cavill, he puts her in her place, “(He’s) like, ‘Millie, shut up. No.’ And I’m like, ‘Understood.'”
It’s a different, more mature relationship than she has with her Stranger Things co-stars, whom she has known since she was ten. “With the Stranger Things kids, it’s different,” she says. “There’s no boundaries because it’s like we’re all siblings…but with Henry, he’s very strict with me, which I appreciate.”
However, the director of Enola Holmes 2, Harry Bradbeer (Fleabag), does see the sibling dynamic, even if Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavil don’t. “Millie and he had this very interesting, enjoyable dynamic where they’re always poking at each other,” he said. “And Millie tickles him up a little bit and surprises him. And he goes with it.”
That sort of chemistry was evident in a recent interview with Good Morning America (video included above). In discussing their personal relationship, Brown insists “I’m more like a brother,” with Cavill playfully dismissing the notion by joking “I wouldn’t know.” That dynamic is one of the reasons the Enola Holmes movies work so well, and why the second film features more interaction between the two.
The second film, written by Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials), focuses on a real historical event, The Matchgirls’ Strike of 1888, a landmark moment in British society. Enola takes a case involving the strike, which strikes at the core of female equality in a male-dominated era. It also mirrors Enola’s journey to be taken seriously as a real detective, as her older male brother is the world’s most celebrated detective.
“If you think of Enola Holmes, it’s a story of a young girl’s transition into womanhood and how she changes and deals with the challenges that she faces,” Bradbeer says.
As for what’s next, Millie Bobby Brown is due to begin shooting the final season of Stranger Things sometime next year, after she finishes filming The Electric State, a sci-fi epic for Netflix. She just completed work on the film Damsel and will begin work on two other films, The Girls I’ve Been and The Thing About Jellyfish, sometime next year.
Henry Cavill has been a bit mum on when he’ll be reprising his role as the Man of Steel, after his appearance in Black Adam, but he’s just wrapped production on Argylle, which will be out next year. Now that he’s officially left as the star of The Witcher, he’ll either be jumping into Man of Steel 2 soon, or begin work on a film he’s rumored to star in, the remake of Highlander. He also has two other films lined up, The Rosie Project and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
