Radhika Jones on Millie Bobby Brown’s Next Chapter

Later this year, at a time and date yet to be announced, millions of people will stop what they are doing and park themselves in front of the nearest available screen to binge the final season of Stranger Things.

The series, which debuted on Netflix in 2016, is one of the streaming era’s most popular shows ever, and its star, Millie Bobby Brown, has grown up on it. She was 11 when the first season started filming a decade ago, and now she’s starting a whole new chapter of life that includes husband Jake Bongiovi, a farm, an animal rescue sanctuary, and a movie, The Electric State, directed by the Russo brothers—plus more of the delightful Enola Holmes. Photographer Sølve Sundsbø captures Brown’s chic side with portraits shot in New York, while Suzy Exposito visits the star in her natural habitat, in Georgia, to learn more about how she handles the limelight from an iconic role and her dreams for what’s next. (Somebody cast her in a musical ASAP!)

During Oscar season last year, we revived an old Vanity Fair rubric, The Power & the Glamour, for a collection of portraits capturing the movers and shakers whose work, regardless of where they’re based, wields influence in Hollywood—longtime faves and rising forces alike. We loved it so much that we are bringing it back, with a new cast of characters photographed by Norman Jean Roy. Here’s Michelle Yeoh, a cinema icon now defying gravity as a Wicked villain, two years after winning an Academy Award for Everything Everywhere All at Once. There’s fashion-world darling Jonathan Anderson, whose collaborations with Luca Guadagnino defined the looks of Challengers and Queer (not to mention creating a fresh vibe for Daniel Craig). How about the trio from SmartLess, seasoned actors Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes, who all turned out to have the perfect faces for podcasting, with a reported $100 million deal from SiriusXM to prove it. And Bela Bajaria, who sits atop all film and TV content at Netflix worldwide. And Issa Rae, a quadruple threat—actor, writer, producer, and now restaurateur too—who’s a model for consolidating creative power (the better to control one’s destiny, my pretty). What’s a current Broadway star doing in the mix? Well, it’s Nicole Scherzinger, who’s generated raves for her performance in that quintessential fable of Hollywood stardom gained and lost, Sunset Blvd. As Los Angeles mobilizes for recovery and rebuilding after this winter’s wildfires, it’s good to remember how resilient the town has always been, in large part because of the people whose creativity and energy fuel it.

At the Democratic National Convention last summer, VF special correspondent James Pogue probed the extent of the party’s joy apparatus: He suspected, rightly, that brands, celebs, and “content-driven strategy” (to quote one young consultant) weren’t going to get Vice President Kamala Harris over the line. At an election night party at Peter Thiel’s house, he knew it for sure. In his feature “Vibe Check,” the result of months of reporting and conversations across the political spectrum, James assesses the state of the Democratic Party now. The critiques he elicits are as bracing as the stakes. As Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez tells him, “You do not save democracy by running around yelling about saving democracy. You do it by demonstrating that democracy and democratic values deliver better quality of life for normal people.”