“I had a few records that I was just constantly spinning on repeat as I’d been building the character I’d had on anyway, so there was that, sort of, subconsciousness that was coming through.” I find it to be a very visceral experience,” he says. “I came in in character, wearing the character, so I’m sitting in the makeup chair very still, not really talking to anyone. While in the chair, Bower would stay extremely focused and quiet. Jamie Campbell Bower was in the makeup chair for more than seven hours to transform into Vecna. I was just bringing up a lot of anger, particularly for Vecna.”įor Henry, it was all about focusing on being nice repeatedly - then manipulating repeatedly. If anyone saw me walking around the streets of Atlanta at 2 o’clock in the morning talking to myself, they would understand. I would find myself doing some pretty wild stuff. I wouldn’t speak to anybody outside of the ‘Stranger Things’ world for at least four days before filming anything. So, digging that up from within me was quite a lot,” Bower says. It’s his fuel, so I really had to tap into that, and I consider myself not somebody who holds onto resentment. “For Vecna, there’s this deep, deep, deep resentment. He says the pandemic was helpful to get into that state of mind, because it gave him extra time to really go to a new place mentally, and do “lots of weird stuff.” First, he filled his office with figurines and posters from “Hellraiser,” “Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Dracula” and other key projects from the ’80s to dive more into the horror genre. And the things that would sort of pop up in the brain were quite weird and odd.” “To work with a young person or a child or somebody who’s much younger, that was an interesting dynamic. Particularly when I’m Henry or One, there’s so much manipulation that’s going on in there,” he shares. During Episode 7, he filmed many scenes opposite both Brown, and a younger actor, Martie Blair, who played a young Eleven. In fact, the mental preparation - both before and on the day of the intense scenes - was just as consuming as the physical one. But it was difficult, and he really had to dig deep. Where’s he gone?'” Bower says, noting that as the character, he knew that was a good thing. “She was terrified, like, literally terrified, and when she saw Vecna, she burst into tears and she said, ‘That’s not my friend. As the speech went on and Henry became Vecna, Brown began to cry. I remember doing it in the rehearsal and Millie just looking at me and saying something like, ‘You’re a freak,'” he says. “I was just fervently going through it and building it and it was a lot. When Brenner found out how strong he was, he made Henry his first test subject - One - and later tried to recreate him, eventually leading to Eleven. “And then came more chaos,” he laughs.ĭuring Episode 7 of Season 4, Henry’s full identity is revealed to Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) in a dark scene Bower has an extremely lengthy monologue, which was about 10 pages, during which he explains to El that he killed his family (Victor Creel was his father) and was placed under Brenner’s (Matthew Modine) care. Three days later, he received the news that he’d landed the role. The Duffers also told him about Henry’s true identity during their discussion, which lasted about 90 minutes. Do you mind if we show you some more visual references that we have and what we’re thinking, and tell you a little bit more about the character?’ I think by that point, they knew I wasn’t completely insane.” Everything that you’ve gotten here is perfect. “They were like, ‘This is literally perfect. They looked up at me after going through it, and they went, ‘Have you been given the scripts?’ I was like, ‘No, honestly, all I’ve been given are your dummy sides, and the two sides from the show,'” Bower explains. So I presented this thing to them, and then we flipped through it. “I think they might have just been kind of humoring me. The meeting went well, and before it ended, he asked if he could show them what was in his folder. “So I took a picture, and then I printed out all the pictures and put them in this little folder - and then I got a phone call saying Matt and Ross wanted to meet.” I stepped back from it after two days, and was like, that feels kind of good,” he says. In my apartment, I put a picture of Will Byers in the middle, and then all the other characters around it, and then sort of made this Claire Danes-esque from ‘Homeland’ mind-map of who I thought this person was.
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