Stranger Things Star Jamie Campbell Bower Reveals His Vecna Is 90 Percent Real

Stranger Things Season 4 took the streaming world by storm. After a three year hiatus, Netflix’s premier series returned with its longest season yet, with some episodes pushing two hours. The latest installment introduced fans to yet another antagonist from the Upside Down, this time being a ghost from Eleven’s past: Vecna. This all-powerful psychokinetic is bent on tormenting Hawkins, specifically targeting those with trauma. While most of the core crew live to see another day, their hometown is left in complete shambles as they anticipate an all-out war next season.

Vecna is brought to life by actor Jamie Campbell Bower, who portrays both the tentacled monster and his human counterpart. This meant Bower’s appearance, both physically and verbally, was ever changing on set.

“It’s about 90 percent real. It takes about eight hours to put the whole thing on,” Bower told The Tonight Show.

This garnered some gasps from the live studio audience, which Bower jokingly appreciated.

“Thank you! I appreciate that. I feel sorry for me too,” Bower responded. “It’s eight hours in the process. We start at like 3:00 AM in the morning to be ready for about 10:00. And then I have to act.”

He then gave props to his make-up department, which included talent with highly-acclaimed résumés.

“Working with Barrie Gower, who’s amazing, he works on Game of Thrones and The Witcher,” Bower praised. “Duncan Jarman, Mike Mekash, Nix [Herrera] and Eric Garcia. Shoutout those guys. Thank you so much.”

Just as Vecna’s physical look took months to perfect, Bower spent a long time fine-tuning the vocal aspect of his villain. Bower revealed that he went through multiple stages of Vecna’s voice before finally finding the hauntingly deep tone he would settle on.

“It took a few months to get right,” Bower said. “We had the read through in March of 2020, and I had been doing a bit of work on Vecna and on Henry. I only got the job in January. So I had kind of February to prepare for it. We did the read through, and I was there at the table read with everyone. I sat behind Milly, and I was doing the voice and it started in this very nasally area, kind of more like Freddy Krueger, and it just wasn’t landing.

“So I went home and worked on it, did a bunch of reference work on like, Hellraiser and Doug Bradley particularly,” Campbell continued. “And it said that this deep, booming voice kind of comes out of the darkness. And I was like, ‘Oh yeah. You can tell.’ So I just kind of worked on that. And I’m a singer, so I just relaxed myself, relaxed my larynx.”

The complete fourth season of Stranger Things is streaming now on Netflix.