If you haven’t yet had a chance to watch the final episode of the first part of Stranger Things Season 4, only continue at your own risk.
The end of Stranger Things’ latest season, which is only the first part of two, gave us the reveal of the real identity behind the overarching big bad, Vecna. In a creative twin flashback sequence, we meet One, the originator of the experiments that led to the creation of Eleven. Jamie Campbell Bower‘s character explains his history as not only the one that started the program but also as Henry Creel, the son of the man that was convicted for the murder of his children long ago. Two-story arcs came together to give us the reveal of how exactly he became this creature of the Upside-Down.
In an interview, the actor talked about how he created a “mind map” on how he would bring this mysterious character together. He was given “two sides” when he auditioned after being approached from the show them being from 1996’s Primal Fear and Hellraiser.
Christopher Lee was on there as Dracula. I had Pinhead, obviously, on there. I had Freddy Krueger on there. I had the more recent version of Dracula. I had some characters from, god, some of the wild ’80s vampire movies. Voldemort was on there as well. And a lot of fire.
Jamie Campbell Bower
He goes on to highlight how he knew nothing about the character for about a month before the Duffer Brothers revealed that he was Stranger Things‘ latest villain.
I knew very, very little, but somehow managed to piece enough together to be able to formulate the reality of who this person was. So call it fate, luck, intelligence, stupidity – god knows how it happened, but it happened.
Jamie Campbell Bower
He also talked about how he got into the suit at 3 AM and started work at 10 AM for up to twelve hours. It would take him another hour to get out of the suit, but he did say it forced him to push his performance as after some time it wasn’t easy.
On a more practical level, rather than an emotional level, I found that I had to give more. The suit moves with the face quite well, but it’s not as pliable. You’ve got a few centimeters or a centimeter or two between your actual skin and what’s able to be seen, so the idea of the eyebrows particularly, you have to make sure that I was really sort of giving it in the facial expression and not what I would maybe give facially if I was just not in a suit. But I think what was great was that underneath it all is the intention of this real hatred and this real resentment, and that was coming through.
Jamie Campbell Bower
The suit was definitely worth the time as its Freddy Krueger-esque design added a whole new level to the danger that he represented. The Duffer Brothers took the practical route to have actors react to it and it seems that he even ended up terrifying Grace Van Dien, who played Chrissie. Millie Bobby Brown even cried when she saw it. So, it sounds like they definitely got the effect they wanted.
Source: IGN
