The best horror villains are not only terrifying but complicated, their destructive persona hiding a far more vulnerable being underneath. That sense of complexity fuels Vecna, the antagonist of “Stranger Things,” whose climactic final season sees the character, played by Jamie Campbell Bower, take on a multitude of faces — some human and some grotesque.
“He wasn’t just playing three characters, but three different layers of the same character, each with unique looks, vocal ranges, physicalities and emotions,” says Matt Duffer, one of the show’s creators. “He [was] able to slip from one to the other like some kind of shape-shifter. It seems so effortless, but we know it’s not. He spends an inordinate amount of time developing his characters in private — fleshing out their backstories, finding a way into their minds and skin.”
Bower was cast in the role ahead of Season 4, where the character was introduced as a kind hospital orderly named Peter Ballard. By the end of the season, he was revealed to be Henry Creel, or One, who was transformed by the power of the Upside Down into a humanoid monster. By Season 5, he’s evolved into a more ferocious iteration of himself, though we also encounter him disguised as the dapper Mr. Whatsit, grappling with traumatic memories as Henry and even briefly returning as the orderly.
Campbell Bower as Peter Ballard.
(Netflix)
“I started with Vecna by physically feeling this character, finding the voice, using the references and attaching all of that into the emotion and the drive behind him,” Bower says. “Then I started with Henry thinking about his childhood, his primary experiences, his feelings as a kid. I worked my way forwards with Henry and backwards with Vecna until they met.”
“Mr. Whatsit was the most challenging for Jamie to find,” Matt Duffer says. “We remember he cracked it by thinking deeply about Henry’s childhood — and how lonely it must have been. After his first day as Mr. Whatsit, he nervously asked us, ‘Is it working?’ We smiled. ‘Oh yeah. It’s working.’”
In Season 4, Vecna’s monstrous form was created almost entirely with prosthetics designed by Barrie Gower. The initial makeup test took 10 hours, a process the team eventually reduced to about six and a half. For Season 5, Gower, visual effects supervisor Betsy Paterson and the Duffer Brothers reimagined “Vecna 2.0” with a combination of prosthetics and visual effects, which reduced Bower’s time in the makeup chair to three hours.
“He was to be seen as a much bigger threat this time and made up of a twisted mass of large, pulsating vines,” Gower says. “It’s like the essence and the power of the Upside Down is pumping through him. Matt and Ross were very keen that we had Jamie’s head and shoulders and it would be a true performance from Jamie in a prosthetic.”
Campbell Bower as Mr. Whatsit.
(Netflix)
“At the end of Season 4, he gets burned and thrown out a window and he has re-created himself,” Paterson adds. “There’s still just a little bit of human left. We needed to feel that he is now his own creation. The facial performance is all Jamie and everything else is based on his body performance.”
Costume designer Amy Parris built lifts into Bower’s shoes to help him look taller and the team added padding under his arms to emphasize Vecna’s more imposing stance. Paterson and Gower used visual references from porcupines to animal embryonic sacks. Vecna’s form is charred and the vines that compose his body can be seen pulsating like they are alive. The team looked at a lot of images of barbecued meat during the design process, and even took a blowtorch to steak to experiment with color and texture. (“Our Google search history was just awful,” Paterson says. “But you want to really sell it.”)
“We wanted to strip away even more of his humanity,” Ross Duffer explains. “If he was 50% human and 50% monster last year, this season we pushed him closer to 70% monster.”
Mr. Whatsit is more composed than Vecna. The Duffers imagined him as a creepy Mr. Rogers, so Parris incorporated a 1950s Gregory Peck-style suit. She added a hat and glasses to make him seem more approachable.
Campbell Bower as Henry Creel.
(Netflix)
“He was very influenced by Dr. Brenner, so I liked the warm brown wool fabric because it reminded me how Brenner started off a little friendlier,” Parris says, referring to the villainous authority figure played by Matthew Modine. “We gave him red socks, which a man of the ’50s probably wouldn’t have normally worn. That was a little nod for me and Jamie because he’s red inside. The red in the tie and the socks imply that he’s hiding underneath all that.”
In Episode 5, the villain shifts between Mr. Whatsit, the blood-splattered orderly and Vecna as he chases Holly (Nell Fisher) and Max (Sadie Sink). The scene was shot multiple times over two days with Bower in each costume and makeup setup, with the actor repeating the exact movement for each version of the character so the VFX team could morph them together.
“I had an earpiece in my ear counting out the beats,” Bower says. “I remember walking on set and there was a pervasive nervous energy. But we could feel when we got it.”
“The Duffers wanted to lean into the psychic horror of it,” Paterson adds. “Jamie did a great job of making sure we could easily flicker between the performances. We can do the most incredible effects in the world, but if the underlying performance doesn’t work it’s never going to come together.”
Campbell Bower at the “Stranger Things” Season 5.
(Scott A. Garfitt / Invision / Associated Press)
In the finale, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and the Hawkins gang defeat Vecna inside the Mind Flayer, which was created with both set builds and CGI. The battle took three years to plan and execute, and it culminates with Joyce (Winona Ryder) decapitating Vecna with an axe after he’s been impaled. First, they shot it with Bower present so he could react to Joyce. “I had to prop myself against this foam spike in front of my colleagues and friends, and then have Winona come up and chop my head off, which was incredible,” Bower says. “It was uncomfortable, but it was actually a very moving moment for me.”
The team then shot the scene with Ryder hitting a pad. Visual effects company Weta created the effect of Vecna’s head detaching from his body. “They had a blast,” Paterson says. “They were chopping things up in parking lots and trying to get a feel for what would happen. He gets hit six or seven times before his head actually falls off, so they had to make it believable that there’s enough sinew and bone in his neck. She’s not the strongest person, so it would take a lot for her to chop his head fully off.”
Although Vecna is bent on total destruction in the show, Bower never thought of him as a villain.
“He’s the point of contention and conflict, but I always wanted to look after him,” Bower says. “I tend to lean on the side of nurture [in] the nurture/nature discussion and I just wanted to love this human being.”
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