Jamie Campbell Bower On Vecna’s Terror In Vol. 1

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains major plot details from the first four episodes of Netflix‘s Stranger Things 5.

Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) is bigger and badder than ever in Stranger Things 5.

After terrorizing Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) and the rest of the Hawkins crew throughout Season 4, the spine-chilling monster is seemingly dormant in the first few episodes of the final season. It’s been 18 months since he nearly split the small town in two, opening up a massive gate into the Upside Down that is temporarily under the control of the U.S. military.

But, just because no one has heard from him doesn’t mean that he’s given up on his plans to end the world. In fact, he sets his sights on a new set of victims in Season 5, starting with none other than Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher), Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Nancy’s (Natalia Dyer) little sister. As Vol. 1 unfolds, we learn that Henry Creel — a.k.a. 001 a.k.a Vecna — has been appearing to children as Mr. Whatsit, stealing the name from Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 children’s novel A Wrinkle in Time.

Once Henry kidnaps Holly, she ends up in his mindscape, where she stumbles upon Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink), who apparently has been hiding out in a part of Henry’s mind that he refuses to venture into — a set of caves — ever since Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) saved her from the brink of death in Season 4.

Campbell Bower joined the cast in Season 4, when the monstrous Vecna and his human counterpart Henry were revealed to the audience, but Stranger Things 5 makes it clear even from its opening sequence that everything the Hawkins crew has endured since Will disappeared on November 6, 1983, has led back to Vecna.

“When I came into Season 4, I actually started with Vecna and went back to Henry in terms of memories and drive, motivation. I think for Vecna, what I was really interested in is this idea of resentment being the sort of thorn around the vein of love, as it were,” Campbell Bower tells Deadline about filling in the blanks to build out this villain over the course of these two seasons.

RELATED: How ‘Stranger Things 5’ Pulled Off That Huge Vol. 1 Reveal & The Show’s Biggest Set Piece Yet As [SPOILER] Faces [SPOILER]

In the interview below, the actor discusses what he made of some of the revelations in Stranger Things 5 Vol. 1 and drops some hints about where things may be headed in the final season.

DEADLINE: We know from last season, as well as more indications in these first few episodes of Season 5, that there is a connection between Vecna and music. I’m curious how your experience as a musician has influenced the way you approach this character?

JAMIE CAMPBELL BOWER: I draw great inspiration from music. It’s one of those things, I think we all know where we were when we first heard certain songs and how we were feeling when we heard them. But, for this show, particularly, I really did use music to help build this character. There’s a level of meditation, I suppose, that comes with being in this character. I found myself in a world of much darker, sound-scapey, meditative music like Sano, a lot of folk, black metal music artists like Chelsea Wolfe, and then on the heavier side of things as well. I mean, I’ve referenced it before, but bands like Norma Jean were inspirational for me in creating this character. So it’s always been there for me throughout the process of making this, and this season was no different. It was nice to be able to put on certain albums and go, ‘Oh, yeah, I know where I am. I know what I need to do.’

DEADLINE: We are also slowly learning more about Henry and his backstory. Did seeing The First Shadow add to your understanding of this character?

CAMPBELL BOWER: It’s really interesting. So when I was preparing during Season 4, I spent a long time thinking about Henry’s childhood, particularly his relationship with his primary caregivers. Before I came in today, I also went back to some of my notes for Season 5, just because it’s such a huge process that sometimes you can forget things. It was cool to go and see the preview in London, and then the stage show, and have a lot of what I had been considering regarding those early relationships with his primary caregivers qualified for me. There’s a brief moment in The First Shadow where we see Virginia hit Henry. I had thought about that already. Of course, in Season 4, he talks about this sort of presentation of the perfect life, but underneath it, it was all a lie.

That gets you thinking naturally anyway. But then I attached my own memories to that, I suppose, for the character and it was nice to have a lot of those things that I had considered be qualified, and then also use them for characters with whom I’m playing with this season. You’ve seen the first four, so it’s no news to you that obviously there’s something going on with Holly, and I found it interesting upon looking at my notes again this morning that I’d considered my father’s relationship to alcohol, and interestingly enough, Karen Wheeler’s relationship to alcohol as well…Holly, as well, is a very smart and bright child. Somebody asked me the other day. They were like, “Why her? Why her first?” And I think that where I got to with that was, I was like, “Well, yes, there’s a connection between the fact that we’re both bright.” I think Henry’s always seen himself as quite bright. But also that presents a challenge as well. If I can win you over, then the rest of them will come easy.

DEADLINE: Henry appears to children, physically and not just mentally this season. What were the conversations like behind how he presents himself and what he wears when he does this?

CAMPBELL BOWER: This super refined, very nice version of who he is. I mean, for the conversation of style, we were definitely, obviously, using A Wrinkle in Time, this idea of Mr. Whatsit. And then even, you know, ‘Who’s your man?’ A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Why am I forgetting?

DEADLINE: Oh, Mr. Rogers. 

CAMPBELL BOWER: Mr. Rogers was a huge inspiration for me as well, with regards to how he wants to present himself with these children, and then even with something like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I always felt like that was a really interesting story that I used quite a lot in building this version of this character. It’s this very warm, nice, natural way of being that hopefully makes them feel at home. It’s so icky. But hopefully it makes them feel at home enough for him to do what he needs to do, which is just disgusting, really, if you think about it.

DEADLINE: Will’s tapped into him a little bit. And then there’s also the history with Joyce in the past. How will that come into play?

CAMPBELL BOWER: The connection to Joyce and that whole storyline that we see in the play was definitely something I had considered and took with me. It was this idea of ‘You took everything away from me, I’m gonna take everything away from you.’ Towards the end of Volume 1 Episode 4, where they sort of see each other again for the first time, it was a powerful moment to see somebody that I had taken with me that was from childhood, although, again, how much of that is still there, how much of that memory is still there? Is the end game, ultimately, more important at that point? But there were scenes that we shot that certainly those memories and those emotions came forward.

DEADLINE: Did you and Noah talk ahead of time or during the season, about that connection between them that was kind of established season four and previously, but how you developed it for Season 5?

CAMPBELL BOWER: It’s funny, Noah and I never spent any time really discussing the connection between the two of them. If you’re to go back and rewatch interviews that I did for Season 4, people would ask me, “Oh, what do you hope for Season 5? And I was like, ‘Oh, I really hope that — it feels like there’s unfinished business between Will and Vecna — and I hope that that’s explored a bit more.’ 

So by the time we got there, I felt like I knew what I needed and wanted to do so much so that, even on the day we were shooting some MAC-Z stuff. We had this brief rehearsal in the morning, [where I was] wearing my normal clothes, and I was like, ‘It’s just going to be what it’s going to be, and it’s going to be great. I know it’s going to be great. I can feel it in my bones.’ That last shot of Will and Vecna, we shot at 5:30 in the morning. That’s half an hour before sunrise came up, and we had very little time to do it. And it was one of those rare moments that happens at work and on set, where everything just went quiet, and it was super powerful, and it felt like there was something else in the room.

RELATED: How Holly Wheeler’s “Larger Role” & ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ Lens Bring ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 “Full Circle”

DEADLINE: Does Vecna know about Will’s powers? What can you say about that?

CAMPBELL BOWER: It’s interesting. ‘Does he know?’ I would assume that he had an inclination that anyone that he would have touched…he will have some way, imprinted upon them. Will’s for him, I think, just in the same way that Eleven is special, I think Will is just equally special.

DEADLINE: Going off of unfinished business, there’s some with Max too.

CAMPBELL BOWER: [Laughs].

DEADLINE: She’s still hanging out in his mind. He knows she’s there, it seems to me. So how does that frustrate him? How did that dynamic evolve?

CAMPBEL BOWER: I can’t say too much about how it frustrates him because there is a huge moment that happens later on in the story, and she is 100% a catalyst for something. It’s incredibly frustrating for him, considering also, given the fact that, he’s trying to use Holly, and she’s taking Holly away. That’s a vexation for sure. So yes, to have Max doing what she’s doing is … it’s annoying.

DEADLINE: Speaking of Holly, when Max is telling her about being trapped in Henry’s mind, she tells her how he wouldn’t approach her in the cave because he’s scared. He’s such a villainous character. How have you thought about what scares him and why?

CAMPBELL BOWER: It’s a very hard question to answer with what you have seen and what I’m allowed to say. It’s very difficult. I have to be very aware of what I’m saying right now. I think it’s really important to remember that, for this season, the version of Henry that you are seeing and the version of Henry that our key figures are seeing is a presentation of what is needed to be done. I felt like, and I spoke about this earlier with somebody else, one of the most interesting things for me this season, with creating the monster as it were, was having those core memories, but burying them and the cave…dot, dot, dot. 

DEADLINE: How much of Vecna is practical this season versus CGI? We saw in Season 4 he was mostly practical.

CAMPBELL BOWER: So this season, for sure, is definitely more of a collaboration across departments, which for me, was really fun actually, because obviously I loved the full body process for Season 4. It was fabulous. It’s not something you get to do often as an actor. I love Barry Gower and the whole team at BGFX, and they’re just amazing. Barry’s a friend, and I’m working with him at the moment, but this season, what you’re seeing is predominantly prosthetics, from sort of here upwards [gestures]. The hand is prosthetic…but I’m wearing a morph suit that’s painted in vines as well. Within that, I was able to have discussions with multiple departments about certain things that I wanted to have just to make sure that the presence and the scale and just this sheer, I don’t know, kind of size of him was still imposing. If we’d been shooting this over a space of three years, and I’d had a year to sort of go huge and then another year to slim down again, I would have loved to have done that, but we didn’t. So I remember speaking to Barry after we did our first fitting with the makeup and saying to him, ‘What would be great is if we can just increase the size of the shoulders. So maybe let’s think about using something like American football pads, just to make sure that he’s still imposing when I’m stood facing off against another person.’

[VFX artist] Michael Maher and I had a discussion during the fitting as well. He was like, ‘So do remember that obviously you’ve got parts of your body missing.’ So I was like, ‘Okay, great.’ Spoke with Barry about that. Barry came back and he had built into the suit itself, sort of two blocks that I could just kind of put my arms down so I didn’t really have to worry about walking like this [gestures]. I could walk as Vecna without too much worry. Then something like height as well…I had six inch rises in my shoes. So that was really cool, because I definitely felt like I was able to be collaborative across departments, but what you’re seeing on screen with regards to the way he moves, what he’s doing, how he’s moving, that’s all me still underneath, underneath the CG, even to the point where, before he comes out in in the fourth episode of 5, we see him in silhouette behind the membrane. It was one of those things where they’re like, ‘Well, we could do it either with a double or we could just do it in post or whatever. But it would be great to have you, because you move in a certain way.’ I was like, ‘Well, of course I’ll be there. It’s my job. I love being here.’ So it was cool. It was a different process entirely.

DEADLINE: How do you differentiate the mental state between Henry and Vecna?

CAMPBELL BOWER: It’s developed over the process of creating both the characters and the show for me. So when I came into Season 4, I actually started with Vecna and went back to Henry in terms of memories and drive, motivation. I think for Vecna, what I was really interested in is this idea of resentment being the sort of thorn around the vein of love, as it were. And obviously with Henry, I think it’s that thing of just kind of being the outside, oppressed, suppressed. I think all actors that play villains occasionally, we do like to say ‘misunderstood,’ but we have to love our characters, right? So I felt like he was misunderstood. So it wasn’t so much a differentiation as it was more a development of the reasonings, the hows and the whys. In 5, that journey did increase exponentially. I think it’s about having those core experiences buried in the back of the mind. There were things that happened when we were shooting 5 that weren’t scripted, that I was like, ‘Oh, wow, this moment is tapping into something that I really have snuck back there,’ and you may see it and you may not, but I know that it’s there. So there is always a connection between the two of them. It’s just, how human is it?

RELATED: ‘Stranger Things 5’ Vol. 1 Explained: All The Mythology You Need From Past Seasons & ‘The First Shadow’ To Keep Up

DEADLINE: How should audiences feel going into Vol. 2?

CAMPBELL BOWER: They should feel like what they’re doing is holding onto their chairs going, ‘No, no, no,’ that’s how I want them to feel, particularly with what I’m up to.  I think Volume 1 is, it’s funny, because it’s like, I want to call it a setup, but it is an explosive setup to what continues to happen in Volume 2 and subsequently [the finale].

DEADLINE: We have some Mortal Instruments fans [at Deadline]. I’m wondering if you would at all consider revisiting that story.

CAMPBELL BOWER: Always. If anybody ever asked me? Of course, of course, I would. 

Editor’s note: This Q&A took place over the course of two conversations. It has been edited for length and clarity.