Jamie Campbell Bower reveals the 1 thing he wanted to change about his “Stranger Things ”villain, Vecna
Jamie Campbell Bower reveals the 1 thing he wanted to change about his “Stranger Things ”villain, Vecna
Wesley StenzelSun, July 26, 2026 at 12:19 AM UTC
0
Jamie Campbell Bower in San Diego, Calif., on July 24, 2026; Vecna in ‘Stranger Things’Credit: Araya Doheny/WireImage; NetflixKey points -
Jamie Campbell Bower revealed the single aspect of Vecna’s appearance that he hoped to change between seasons of Stranger Things.
The actor joined Benjamin Walker, Raúl Castillo, and Sung Kang at EW’s Brave Warriors panel at San Diego Comic-Con.
Bower will soon star in season 3 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Jamie Campbell Bower loved playing Vecna in Stranger Things, but there was one element of the character’s appearance that he wanted to change in between seasons.
At Entertainment Weekly‘s Brave Warriors panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 — which also featured his Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power costar Benjamin Walker, Drifter‘s Sung Kang, and The Walking Dead: Dead City‘s Raúl Castillo — the actor explained how he hoped to tweak Vecna’s look after season 4 of the Netflix series.
“Shoes are a big thing because they do affect the way that you walk,” he explained. “It’s something I’m always focused on. I remember after doing season 4 of Stranger Things, [prosthetics designer] Barrie [Gower] was like, ‘If there’s one thing you can change, what would it be?’ And I’d be like, the feet, I’d make them more tactile.’”
Vecna’s feet did change between seasons, but not in the way that Bower had requested. “Of course, we get to season 5, and even my toes are CG, so there’s no reason to worry about that,” he said. “[But] that was what I wanted.”
Jamie Campbell Bower in ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’Credit: Ben Rothstein/Prime
The panelists largely focused on the physical components of their performances, as Kang explained how he used snacking as a form of nonverbal communication throughout his early work in the Fast and Furious series.
“When you don’t have a lot of lines in a role, an actor needs an activity to receive something or give something back,” he said. “And I was able to use the snacks to verbalize what the inner dialogue would be — use the snacks for disdain, for confusion, disappointment, excitement. And it was a wonderful prop to be able to have dialogue in the scene.”
Kang said that even though his character, Han, “would maybe say two words the whole time,” his on-screen eating helped audiences grow to like him. “People were still able to connect with you, ‘cause we all snack, we all use these things in our daily lives to comfort ourselves.”
Advertisement
Castillo shared a memory of working on a gnarly scene in HBO’s Task, where he was greatly assisted by an intense makeover.
“I had like four hours of prosthetics to transform my face into a mutilated mess,” he explained. “Sometimes you get to set for one of these pivotal, important scenes, and people are snacking or doing their thing, and people aren’t matching the energy of the scene, and you have to kind of fight that as an actor to keep your focus.”
Raul Castillo; Sung Kang; Benjamin WalkerCredit: Chelsea Guglielmino/FilmMagic; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty; Emma McIntyre/Getty
That wasn’t the case when Castillo showed up on set with his wild makeup. “That day, I arrived, and I had these prosthetics that dramatically transformed my face, and the tone on set got very quiet,” he said. “It was almost like I was at my own funeral. Nobody could look at me…it was an incredible tool as an actor to have that, because people sort of respected the space that we needed to shoot the scene.”
Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.
Walker said that his weapons training for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter helped him with his combat training on The Rings of Power because both fighting styles were based on bo staff skills. “It’s the same stuff!” he said. “And then you feel really cool on the first day, ‘cause the stunt guy is like, ‘I’m gonna teach you some new stuff, we’re gonna keep it safe.’ And I’m like, ‘You mean this? Ha ha, sucka!’”
Walker added, “The fundamentals of it, whether it’s learning to use a specific weapon, or to be able to disassemble your M1 Garand — it is a quality of work and a respect for safety, and then it is, like a dance, it is dialogue through different physical vocabulary. And once you’ve done that well with a stunt team of artists — which is really what they are — then that carries through all your work.”
Check out more of EW’s coverage from San Diego Comic-Con 2026.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
