{"id":336244,"date":"2025-12-26T08:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T08:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/336244\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T08:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T08:47:08","slug":"jamie-campbell-bower-talks-volume-2s-revelations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/336244\/","title":{"rendered":"Jamie Campbell Bower Talks Volume 2’s Revelations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Stranger Things 5<\/a> Volume 2.<\/p>\n

\n\tJamie Campbell Bower<\/a>\u2018s Vecna only gets more terrifying in Volume 2 of the final season, which sees the monster get another step closer to enacting his plan to merge the human world with another dimension. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs viewers learn over the course of the three episodes, the Upside Down is a wormhole that has connected Hawkins to this alternate dimension that Dustin dubs \u201cThe Abyss,\u201d which they believe is the true home of the mind flayer, the demogorgons, and the rest of the evils that have been haunting them for the past four years \u2014 even, it seems, Henry Creel. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe characters have been completely unable to locate Vecna all season, because, as it turns out, he\u2019s been hiding in this alternate dimension that they were unaware of and can\u2019t access (since it is situated thousands of yards above them). While they\u2019re unraveling this mystery, Vecna is busy trying to keep Holly (Nell Fisher) and Max (Sadie Sink) from escaping his mind prison. The girls realize that, in order to get out, they\u2019ll need to trek their way through Henry\u2019s memories instead of their own, leading to a heartbreaking moment where they witness a very young Henry murder a man he encounters\u2026in a cave. This seems to give insights on why Henry won\u2019t enter the cave that Max and Holly have been hiding in within his mind, though there are still some questions left to be answered in the finale. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Max manages to get out, Holly isn\u2019t so lucky. By the end of the penultimate episode, she\u2019s back in his clutches and Henry begins his process to merge the worlds, teasing one final face off to come in the 2-hour finale.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Episode] 8 comes in steaming hot, right off the back of 7. It\u2019s go time. It\u2019s really, really explosive,\u201d Campbell Bower tells Deadline.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the interview below, the actor unpacks his descent further into the madness of Henry Creel for Volume 2 of the fifth and final season of Stranger Things. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"L-R:<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tL-R: Noah Schnapp as Will Byers and Jamie Campbell Bower as Vecna in \u2018Stranger Things\u2019 Season 5<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Netflix<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Was any of this information we\u2019ve learned about Henry since Season 4 pitched to you when you took the role? How much did you initially know?<\/p>\n

\n\tJAMIE CAMPBELL BOWER: I don\u2019t think any of it was pitched to me when I joined. I do remember towards the end of filming the Henry portion of Season 4, Matt and Ross, sort of, we had a little aside conversation, and they were like, \u2018This has been amazing. We were always going to bring you back as Vecna, but now we feel like we should bring you back more as you.\u2019 and I was just like, \u2018Cool. Sounds great. Whatever you guys want.\u2019 So, with regards to the story arc, none of it was pitched to me, and I think it was, from what I\u2019ve heard and read from Matt and Ross, it was something that sort of developed in the in-between time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: I do really enjoy that we get to see more of Henry this season. And I\u2019m curious how it was for you working with some of these younger kids, especially having to be so cruel to them? What did you gain from that experience? Because they\u2019re giving you so much back emotionally. And I wonder, for you as such a as a more seasoned, older actor, how that was to kind of get to play in that sandbox with them.<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMPBELL BOWER: It was awesome. I mean, there were definitely times where it was terrifying for me. I\u2019ve been vocal about this today and when we were discussing the first chapters as well. The Mr. Whatsit side of things, this is a presentation, and the intention is buried. So when you\u2019re sat opposite a child, burying the intention, children, naturally, can see through the BS and lies. It\u2019s a very terrifying experience at times to be sat there\u2026but it was also a lot of fun too, because the kids were so great. There was so many funny moments where we\u2019d be playing games between takes, and particularly that last scene in Episode 7, where we\u2019re all sat round the table, it was one of the first times where, I mean, you know, obviously, aside from the beginning of five, we were all together, and we had a lovely day. It was just a beautiful, fun experience to play with them. They\u2019re so great and so receptive, and it was a joy to be able to get to know them and work with them. All of them are amazing. I love Jake dearly. I just think he\u2019s the loveliest boy, and I got to know his family too, and he\u2019s just a great kid. I\u2019m so glad that the fan base and the world has taken Derek into their hearts. It was always the thing that I hoped most for him. I was like, \u2018He\u2019s so cool. I hope that that happens,\u2019 and it has, and I\u2019m so happy for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: You\u2019ve talked about Henry and especially Vecna\u2019s head being a hard place to live in as an actor, and I\u2019m curious how this was for you to get to unpack some of what happened to him as he was a kid? I\u2019m thinking particularly about the scene where we get to see Henry as a young boy kill that scientist in the cave, and that\u2019s a really jarring scene.<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMPBELL BOWER: It is something that I thought about going into Season 4, even, and had qualified between 4 and 5 when I went to go and see the play. So, getting to play those scenes out, I felt at times like a huge release, and it was also really important for me to go into those scenes understanding the trauma and the experience to bring that level of humanity forward. I\u2019ve been describing Henry this season, and the way I approached it as, like, memory retention, but buried far away. So when I get to uncover that, dig that up, it does humanize the experience and the character for me, because there are times where I feel wildly inhuman, monstrous, and I know that sounds obvious, but like truly monstrous. So I took great pleasure in those moments for sure.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: There\u2019s a scene in Episode [5] that I really like where we see in real time Henry kind of transitioned from One to Vecna. How did you think about the subtle differences in the evolution of that character throughout those periods of time to be able to pull off something like that?<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMPBELL BOWER: I mean, I think it was always that thing of, like, the mask failing, it falling away, and where I got to with Henry at the end of Episode 7 of Season 4 was the way in which I wanted to be bringing him back when we saw him again. It was in that emotional space. Having lived in Mr. Whatsit already in Season 5, there is a difference for me between them, subtle though it may be, there is a difference. So yes, there are emotional differences and difficulties, but also physical [ones]. That particular moment, the physicality of that was something that we worked on with, actually, with somebody who works in the video game space, and using things like called nodes, which are like particular moments that you strike and that you\u2019ll come back to. So the shift between Whatsit and Henry was something that we worked on off set prior to shooting it. <\/p>\n

\n\tI was going through my videos the other day, and I\u2019m there on the stage doing it, trying out different things, trying out how I wanted my head to move and where my arms were going to be. Yes, that is a very short moment, but it is something that we spent a long time on, just to make sure that it was right and that it felt cool. So much of that is about intuition and the work that goes into it beforehand, so that when you get into the space, it\u2019s just like, \u2018Oh, this is what naturally these characters would do here.\u2019 It was really fun. It was really cool to do the sort of more shape-shifty bits. In England, we have three exams in your years between, like, 13 and 18, and the middle one is called your AS (Advanced Subsidiary) Levels, and I did dance AS Levels. I got to lean quite heavily into that dance side of my childhood, which was really fun. It was nice to know that that was still in there, and, God, like it hasn\u2019t completely gone.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Jamie<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJamie Campbell Bower as Henry Creel in \u2018Stranger Things\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Netflix<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: How you view, emotionally, that separation between Henry and Vecna? Is it just a loss of humanity? How do you make that distinction in your head when you\u2019re playing those characters?<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMPBELL BOWER: I mean, it depends on what we\u2019re referring to as a loss of humanity, really. Because, is it the distance from the heart, or is it like monstrous in the sense of monsters? I think Henry was so close, was much closer to innocence, was much closer to the experiences, and then when he was sent to that slippery, veiny demise at the end of [Season] 4, it became about resentment, and at that point, it felt like humanity had gone. It felt like the possibility of love was so far away. I refer to love as that thing that keeps us alive, and so I think Henry, if we look at it this way, like Henry is close to innocence, Whatsit is further removed, and Vecna is just like\u2026it\u2019s impossible \u2014 virtually impossible \u2014 for there to be anything that feels like love.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: What are you excited for from the finale, and what you ultimately hope people take away from this character that you\u2019ve spent so much time thinking about and playing?<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMPBELL BOWER: So with regards to what we can expect for the finale, I am genuinely, really excited for Episode 8 to come out. I feel like Episode 7 is \u2014 because I obviously know what\u2019s coming in 8, and we do leave on quite, in my opinion, knowing what\u2019s coming, quite a hefty cliffhanger, and 8 comes in steaming hot, right off the back of 7. It\u2019s go time. It\u2019s really, really explosive. I\u2019m really excited for people to see that, because I know how it felt to work on it, too, and that\u2019s really cool. What do I hope people take away from this character? Wow, I\u2019m still in process on that. Like, I\u2019m genuinely still in process on that, because I spent so much time in it, and I don\u2019t know if I can yet see the wood from the trees. I\u2019m not sure. So much of this character is based on the idea of loneliness. So much of this character is based on the idea of salvation. I had to fall in love, and I did fall in love with Henry Creel. I had to want to protect him. I had to want to nurture him and love him, because that\u2019s my duty as the person that\u2019s playing him. I have to understand him, and I don\u2019t know how it feels to be a viewer, yet, watching that from afar, I don\u2019t know. I\u2019d have to give myself another six months to truly be able to absorb that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Stranger Things 5 Volume 2. Jamie Campbell Bower\u2018s Vecna only gets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,29711,392,130864,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-336244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-jamie-campbell-bower","tag-netflix","tag-stranger-things-5","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}