{"id":72853,"date":"2025-11-28T02:41:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T02:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/72853\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T02:41:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T02:41:13","slug":"stranger-things-inside-the-making-of-vecna-2-0-for-season-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/72853\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Stranger Things’: Inside the making of ‘Vecna 2.0’ for Season 5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article contains spoilers for Season 5, Volume 1 of \u201cStranger Things.\u201d <\/p>\n

If anyone visited Jamie Campbell Bower in the days before he secured the role of Vecna in \u201cStranger Things,\u201d<\/a> they might have been disturbed by what they found.<\/p>\n

Bower had spent that period \u201ckind of going crazy,\u201d studying the audition materials he had been given \u2014 a scene from the series (with fake character names), one from the 1996 film \u201cPrimal Fear\u201d and one from the \u201880s horror classic \u201cHellraiser.\u201d He then crafted a whodunit-style vision board, pinning printed images of iconic movie villains onto his walls. He latched onto Doug Bradley\u2019s Pinhead and incorporated Voldemort, Nosferatu, Dracula and images from \u201cThe Shining,\u201d \u201cInsidious\u201d and \u201cThe Prince of Darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bower had essentially made a shrine to villainy. But what better way is there to make a monster than to draw from the scariest and most spine-chilling in the game? <\/p>\n

He thumbed through a neat binder with all of the reference images that were once tacked to his walls as he sat in a hotel room at the Four Seasons earlier this month that was done up in \u201cStranger Things\u201d decor. Although he had pulled ideas and inspiration from several different characters and movies, he couldn\u2019t shake Bradley\u2019s work from his mind.<\/p>\n

He wanted Vecna to feel \u201cso poised, so considered and surgical, almost. And Pinhead is that. He doesn\u2019t run. Pinhead never runs. He knows that he\u2019s an ultimate power all the time,\u201d Bower said. \u201cThat feels really strong for me. I really, really like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to playing the monster, Bower plays the man he once was, Henry Creel, in \u201cStranger Things,\u201d Netflix\u2019s supernatural sensation, which released the first batch of episodes for its fifth and final season<\/a> Wednesday. Henry, who we first meet as a young boy with powerful psychokinetic abilities, evolves throughout the show from the first child test subject in Hawkins Labs to the powerful Vecna after he\u2019s banished to the Upside Down.<\/p>\n

As he devolves in the dark, decaying shadow dimension, he becomes less and less human in both spirit and appearance. His skin is scorched by lightning, his body is overtaken by the vines from the Upside Down, and his left hand is mutilated. He has a deep, booming voice, which is actually Bower speaking without manipulation in post-production. And in Season 4, most of what the audience sees of Vecna \u2014 the vines wrapped around his body, his mutilations and burns, the slimy texture of his skin, his startling walk and movement \u2014 was pulled off practically with prosthetics, appliances and makeup.<\/p>\n

Bringing Vecna to life was no easy feat, with a lot of cross-departmental collaboration happening behind the scenes. In Season 4, where Vecna is first introduced, the team built full-body prosthetics based on concept art for the character that took roughly eight hours to apply on Bower.<\/p>\n

But for Season 5, the creatives behind the show were looking to make \u201cVecna on steroids,\u201d as Barrie Gower, the prosthetics wiz for \u201cStranger Things,\u201d put it.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Vecna has a sharper appearance and broader stance in Season 5 of \u201cStranger Things.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Netflix)<\/p>\n

Michael Maher Jr., a concept illustrator and visual effects supervisor who had cooked up the earliest iterations of Vecna, said the show\u2019s creators, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, wanted Vecna to feel more powerful this season, \u201cbut not [in] the clich\u00e9, bigger and bulkier way.\u201d They also wanted the extent of his injuries from the Season 4 finale, where his opponents set him on fire, shoot him repeatedly and send him flying out of a second-story window, to be evident.<\/p>\n

Maher said he was sculpting to ideate on this new version of the character when he accidentally punched a hole in the figure\u2019s torso. It was a serendipitous moment, however; it clicked for him that Vecna 2.0 could be simultaneously more exposed and sharper. The vines that overtook his body now have a Medusa-like quality near his head and shoulders, essentially serving as armor, Maher said.<\/p>\n

His mutilated arm and hand, which was already terrifying with its long digits and sharp claws that he would draw close to his victims\u2019 faces, is now extendable, as if he has become one with the vines of the Upside Down.<\/p>\n

Because of Vecna\u2019s souped-up look for the final season, a blend of practical and visual effects were used to accomplish the final look. Gower called it a \u201creally beautiful marriage\u201d of the two. The monster\u2019s head, shoulders and right arm were made up of prosthetics, but for the rest, Bower wore a spandex suit that had a printed pattern of Vecna\u2019s body from Season 4, serving as a reference for the visual effects team. Bower also wore foam inserts under his arms to capture the gait and broad stance of the creature.<\/p>\n

Gower said with all of the moving parts and elements of Vecna\u2019s body that they wanted to change for the new season, it would have been a \u201clogistical nightmare\u201d to pull off practically. He and Maher\u2019s teams had lengthy conversations early on in the process to prevent overbuilding the prosthetics, Gower said. Creating the new look took about three months. <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

The team behind Vecna opted for a blend of prosthetics, appliances and a spandex suit to film Season 5. (Niko Tavernise \/ Netflix) <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

The character Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) and Vecna come face-to-face in Season 5. (Niko Tavernise \/ Netflix) <\/p>\n

When the Duffer Brothers and Maher were initially talking about the design of Vecna, they drew from Pinhead and Freddy Krueger in the same way Bower did for his performance. The creatives had been pulling from \u201880s classic movies for the \u201cnostalgia quality,\u201d Maher said, but the challenge for him was creating something that still felt fresh and reflected Vecna\u2019s power. He wanted to make it clear Vecna was \u201ca character that is mostly powerful with his mind, that really resonates as a villain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

By 2019 as the developmental process for the concept art was moving along, the Duffer Brothers approached Gower, whose work on \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d and \u201cChernobyl\u201d they admired. Gower has a young daughter who was an avid fan of \u201cStranger Things\u201d at the time, and he said he couldn\u2019t possibly turn down the opportunity. Even before Bower was cast, a roughly five-month process (save a pause in production for the pandemic) kicked off for Gower and his team to develop the Vecna gear. The full-body suit was made up of about 26 overlapping prosthetic pieces that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. <\/p>\n

Gower and his team used foam latex, which is lightweight and opaque, to cover large body pieces for Vecna, mainly his left arm and lower body. Silicone-based materials came into play for his face, soldiers, chest, back and right arm, since the material is clear and can be dyed to match the pigment of the creature\u2019s skin. It\u2019s challenging to paint the two different materials and make them appear as one, cohesive body, Gower said, but the artists he worked with are \u201cincredible craftspeople,\u201d some of whom are classically trained painters. <\/p>\n

Gower said with all of the logistics involved in creating Vecna, Bower was patient and collaborative \u2014 whether that was through 2 a.m. calls to get the prosthetics applied before he was called to set or through the adjustments Gower\u2019s team had to make as those long shoot days progressed. Gower also praised not only Bower\u2019s stamina, but also his commitment to the performance. <\/p>\n

Bower described the \u201cgothy folk, black metal\u201d music he would play as he sat in the makeup chair, which would get faster and more hardcore as they progressed. Gower said at the start of the hours-long application, Bower would crack jokes and be himself. But as they neared the end, they would \u201cstart to lose Jamie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Jamie Campbell Bower in his Vecna costume on the set of \u201cStranger Things\u201d with showrunners Matt Duffer, left, and Ross Duffer.<\/p>\n

(Niko Tavernise \/ Netflix)<\/p>\n

\u201cVecna\u2019s voice would start coming out,\u201d Gower said. \u201cBy the end of the process, it was Vecna talking to us. It wasn\u2019t Jamie anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really can\u2019t imagine Vecna being as successful, as iconic a villain and character without it being Jamie Campbell Bower,\u201d Gower continued. \u201cHe\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becoming Vecna can be both mentally and physically taxing because of the prosthetics and the dark place it requires the actor to go. But Bower said he found playing Henry, Vecna\u2019s human form, even more challenging this season. <\/p>\n

For him, Vecna is devoid of any humanity, but when he is playing Henry, there\u2019s still \u201celements of humanity,\u201d though his intentions are pure evil. In Vol. 1, we see Henry targeting the children of Hawkins, but instead of presenting himself as Vecna, as he did in Season 4, he\u2019s approaching his victims with a friendly, well-dressed front \u2014 they call him Mr. Whatsit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was something that was arguably more terrifying in having the composure enough to be able to let whomever else is there make wrong choices,\u201d Bower said. It\u2019s a fun puzzle for him to figure out how much emotion to show and when to let the mask slip to the audience, he added. <\/p>\n

In comparison to the monsters Bower drew from to develop Vecna, he looked to one person as inspiration for Henry in Season 5: Mister Rogers. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing. And Bower promises we\u2019ll see more of the wolf come out as the season progresses, though he\u2019s careful not to reveal too much. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article contains spoilers for Season 5, Volume 1 of \u201cStranger Things.\u201d If anyone visited Jamie Campbell Bower…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2789,42664,6193,42665,42667,48,52,51,47,50,49,42668,42670,42666,278,37492,427,37493,37489,42669,42671],"class_list":["post-72853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-body","tag-bower","tag-character","tag-gower","tag-henry-creel","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-maher","tag-pinhead","tag-prosthetic","tag-season","tag-stranger-thing","tag-team","tag-upside-down","tag-vecna","tag-vine","tag-visual-effect-supervisor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}