Warning: Spoilers for Stranger Things to follow.
There are certain highs in life that are only reserved for the actor; among them the tingling satisfaction of adoring a character that you get to portray, and subsequently enrapturing audiences with your performance as that character.
Jamie Campbell Bower is the latest actor to pull off this coveted double threat thanks to his spine-tingling double-act as Dr. Brenner’s flagship experiment One, and as Vecna, One’s eventual transformation and the ultimate antagonist of Stranger Things 4.
Bower expertly shifted from the suspiciously kind mentor to god complex tyrant over the course of the season, and the actor himself relished every second of it. In an interview with Variety, Bower happily divulged the love he has for his character, even going as far to say that he has trouble viewing the character as a villain.
“Am I able to view him as a villain? I’m certainly able to view him as as a point of conflict. But in terms of, like, is he evil or villainous? I mean, I understand him, and I love him. And I relate to him. I just got a pain in my eyes as I was saying that — maybe I should shut up! Like, I understand him, and so I’m always gonna be on his side.”
He would go on to lay out an example from Vecna’s childhood as a means of explaining what he sees in the character.
“He grew up in an environment where his father murdered a civilian and a civilian family on the orders of people he never knew, who were presenting themselves as these upstanding citizens. In whose eyes are they upstanding?”
Given Vecna’s status as a ruthless, murder-happy monster, one may raise their eyebrows at Bower’s love-laden comments about him. But at the same time, perhaps falling in love with Vecna the way Bower did is the very thing that gifted us his masterclass of a performance this season, so we’re okay with it.
Stranger Things season four is currently available to stream on Netflix.