{"id":324776,"date":"2025-12-01T21:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T21:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/324776\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T21:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T21:19:07","slug":"even-the-guy-who-plays-vecna-didnt-know-how-stranger-things-would-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/324776\/","title":{"rendered":"Even the Guy Who Plays Vecna Didn’t Know How ‘Stranger Things’ Would End"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that the first volume of Stranger Things season five<\/a> is out in the world, fans have more speculation to gnaw on<\/a> while they ponder its impending endgame. Show creators the Duffer Brothers have gone on the record saying they\u2019ve long known<\/a> how the story would wrap up, though getting there has required a pinch of retconning. That\u2019s seen most notably in season five\u2019s opening moments<\/a>, which showed that Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) was indeed present when li\u2019l Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) was snatched into the Upside Down in season one, despite the big bad not actually appearing in the story proper until season four.<\/p>\n

If you think Bower might be the one cast member who had a clue as to where season five was leading when he showed up to film\u2014well, think again. He\u2019d been in that privileged space for season four, he explained in a new interview with the Hollywood Reporter<\/a>. But when it came time to make the show\u2019s final episodes, the Duffers didn\u2019t give him any extra morsels, aside from what he was able to beg out of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I had known more than I did. Obviously for [season] four, I went into that knowing so much more than perhaps anybody else on the cast. I felt really sad going into [season] five, not knowing as much as I did, not having that power within me,\u201d he told THR. \u201cI don\u2019t think Matt and Ross [Duffer] would mind me telling you this, that as I\u2019m receiving the scripts and going through the process, I\u2019m firing over text message\u2014just paragraphs of messages of questions, to the point where I think I was in the U.S. and flying somewhere, not even on my way back from the table read. I called them with one very specific question. I was like, \u2018I really, really need you to tell me what this is.\u2019 And they were like, \u2018Okay, fine,\u2019 and they eventually relented. I managed to get it out of them. But I was as in the dark [as] everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, with the episodes now all in the can, Bower obviously knows what\u2019s happening next. But you won\u2019t be getting any spoilers out of Vecna. All he\u2019ll say is that season five\u2019s version of the character, which expands on the Henry Creel backstory as well as the monster he becomes, felt like \u201cquite a meaty bite to have, because as an actor, there are so many times where what you want to be doing is playing the truth, and the truth in this scenario is clearly that Holly Wheeler (Nell Fisher) is being used in some way, and he\u2019s not telling her,\u201d Bower said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that is a terrifying thing to sit opposite a child and have to lie; that means it\u2019s really, really scary. As this season progresses, you will see more. Those were moments where that felt like a really big sigh; like a huge breath out. As an actor, it\u2019s a privilege. Personally, it\u2019s also very terrifying. It\u2019s very, very scary to play. A big undertaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stranger Things season five continues December 25 and 31 on Netflix.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now that the first volume of Stranger Things season five is out in the world, fans have more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,165713,217,13671,64590,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-324776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-jamie-campbell-bower","10":"tag-netflix","11":"tag-stranger-things","12":"tag-the-duffer-brothers","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}