Jamie Campbell Bower on ‘Stranger Things 5’: Vecna’s Latest Look

SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses plot developments in Season 5, Volume 1 of “Stranger Things,” currently streaming on Netflix.

Vecna is back in “Stranger Things 5” and he looks scarier than ever.

In Season 4 of the Netflix series, Jamie Campbell Bower was introduced because the sinister arch-villain within the Duffer Brothers’ Netflix series. While Bower is simple on the eyes as Vecna’s human incarnate, Henry Creel, Vecna in full form is a gruesome monster with vascular gray flesh, a decrepit face and piercing eyes — a fitting prince of the Upside Down.

Because of Vecna’s temporary defeat at the top of Season 4 — after Nancy, Robin and Steve shot up his body and set it on fire — he returns in Season 5 looking much more grisly. When he makes his full body debut within the season’s fourth episode, he appears larger, with a more skeletal frame composed of veins, bones, muscles and ligaments tangled together in a ghastly visual. 

Naturally, Vecna’s recent look required a brand new level of computer graphics, each digital and practical. “This season was definitely more of a mix between practical and CG,” Bower tells Variety. “On a practicality level, the face is all prosthetics, the shoulders are prosthetics, the hands are prosthetics, but every thing else is a morph suit.”

Turning Bower into the monster was a collaborative process between the actor and the make-up, computer graphics, costume and concept art teams. Bower credits prosthetic makeup department head Barrie Gower, costume designer Amy Parris and concept artist Michael Maher for his or her ingenuity in bringing Vecna to life.

Bower recalls talking with Gower to be sure that, while he would not be in full costume during shooting, “Vecna still has the presence that he had once I first stepped onto set — I need to be certain that that I’m still large.” Gower added shoulder pads into the costume in addition to “two large blocks within the side of the suit,” he added, in order that Bower’s arms “just naturally sat that little bit further away from the body,” ensuring that Vecna retained an organically menacing gate. Meanwhile, Parris made sure that Bower had three inch rises in his shoes, in order that Vecna towered over the remainder of the characters.

It was a distinct experience playing Vecna this time around, as the brand new prosthetics and technology required for a smaller layer of latex covering the actor. Bower recalls that in Season 4, he had “an inch and a half of froth latex to get through” whereas Season 5 only called for “a millimeter.” This allowed for more fluidity and a smaller membrane for his performance to translate through.

Still, a pair features remained the identical, notably Vecna’s sinister voice, which Bower also provides. Bower developed the voice in Season 4 based off of Doug Bradley’s performance as Pinhead within the “Hellraiser” movies. “Doug is amazing as Pinhead and people first three [‘Hellraiser’] movies are incredible,” he said. “I might often send the Duffers the gif of ‘Hellraiser III,’ where he says, ‘I’m the way in which’ before the windows blow. That was often on the top of an email.”

Bower also strived to take care of his relationship along with his costars, especially since he shared scenes with so many young actors playing Vecna’s terrified victims. “You absolutely don’t want them to be afraid on a regular basis,” says Bower, “but in fact, there are occasions where it’s crucial for the scene as well.”

He credits the copious scenes he shared with Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven in Season 4 for allowing him to refine this balance. “Millie is wildly receptive and that’s what makes her an incredible actor,” he says, “It’s like what she’s experiencing is real on a regular basis, so inside that, there have been definitely moments where we were working and he or she was in full terror, which, in fact, is something that you simply need and need for the scenes. It’s essential, but additionally, as her friend and any person who loves her, I don’t want her to feel like that and there have been certain moments where we were doing that and he or she went, ‘Oh, no, I understand it’s you now. I feel secure because I can smell your cigarettes.’”

Those check-ins were paramount to maintain filming a positive experience, and regardless that Vecna is the series’ antagonist, Bower still feels a kinship along with his costars and the “Stranger Things” crew. “All of us are such a family, . It’s one of the vital amazing things I believe I’ve worked on,” he reflects. “Because Matt and Ross are each intellectually incredibly intelligent and emotionally incredibly intelligent in addition to incredibly passionate, hardworking people, it makes all of us just go, ‘Yes, let’s do that together. We’re on this. Let’s bring our A-game.’ And inside that, we just change into this incredible team and, like I said, a family.”