Stranger Things’ Vecna Star Opens Up About Playing Villain: “It F—S Me Up”

Whatever happens to Vecna in Stranger Things Season 5, actor Jamie Campbell Bower is hoping for a change. The actor spoke about his experience playing Subject 001 and other villains earlier this month at MegaCon, admitting that the antagonistic roles are taking a toll on him. He hopes to break out of this typecasting going forward. Bower joined Stranger Things in Season 4 as Henry Creel, a.k.a. Vecna, and he was praised for raising the stakes on the series. He also played Grindelwald in the Harry Potter films, one of the Volturi in the Twilight series, and a hadful of other recent bad guys.

“It’s funny. I was talking to my therapist the other day,” Bower said when asked the villain pattern at MegaCon. This reportedly prompted a laugh from the crowd, but Bower said that he was “dead serious… I’m not lying.”

“We were going through some stuff, and he was like, ‘We really need to make sure that you carve out time for you whenever you’re working next,’” Bower recalled. “I turned around to him, and I was like, ‘Yeah, to be honest with you, man, I just don’t think I’ll be doing another bad guy for a minute.’ Like, it f—s me up. I’m dead serious.”

[RELATED: Stranger Things’ Star Jamie Campbell Bower Reads Iconic Catchphrases in Vecna Voice]

Bower clarified that he is grateful for his role as Vecna and he doesn’t take it for granted. “It’s been amazing, and it’s been an incredible journey, to join the show from season 4, to be part of something that so many people love and something that I loved as well and still love,” he said. “But I definitely am ready to hang up the foam latex and wish him a slippery farewell.”

Stranger Things Season 5 will wrap up this global sensation and one of Netflix’s biggest hits of all time. This season has been in the works for quite a while now, with delays from the 2023 Hollywood labor strikes as well as ripple effects from the COVID-19 pandemic, which had already delayed Season 4. Season 5 filmed all throughout 2024, and is reportedly the biggest installment ever in terms of scale, special effects, and worldbuilding.

Stranger Things Season 5 is expected to premiere sometime in 2025, but we still know surprisingly little about the story, and haven’t seen a trailer yet. Previous seasons are streaming on Netflix now. Check back for updates as they become available.