26 July 2026
Jamie Campbell Bower has shared the “one thing” he wanted to change about playing Vecna in Stranger Things.
Jamie Campbell Bower wanted different feet in Stranger Things
The 37-year-old actor adored playing the villain in the Netflix series but admitted that after making his debut in season four, he was keen to have “more tactile” feet in his final episodes.
Speaking on Entertainment Weekly‘s Brave Warriors panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2026, he said: “Shoes are a big thing because they do affect the way that you walk.
“It’s something I’m always focused on. I remember after doing season 4 of Stranger Things, [prosthetics designer] Barrie [Gower] was like, ‘If there’s one thing you can change, what would it be?’ And I’d be like, the feet, I’d make them more tactile.’”
Vecna’s feet did change before the fifth and final season, but not quite in the way that Jamie had hoped for.
He added: “Of course, we get to season 5, and even my toes are CG, so there’s no reason to worry about that,” he said. “[But] that was what I wanted.”
Prosthetics expert Barrie Gower previously revealed Jamie was on set almost round-the-clock when the make-up department were first getting to grips with his Vecna look.
He told People magazine: “We could be starting at 1am, 2am to get him ready for 8am or 9am. We would have a whole shooting day of, maybe a 10 to 12 hours. Then we would be de-rigging him two hours in the evening.
“By the time they got to the fourth season, the production team was so experienced and so on it.”
Gower recalled how everyone would be “exhausted” by the end of the day, but the shoots were scheduled to prevent them working two days in a row.
He added: “Tudor Jones — who’s one of the producers on season 5, but he was the first assistant director on season 4 — he scheduled the shoots so cleverly and considerably that we would never shoot Jamie two days on a row.
“We’d have a super long day. We’d be exhausted, which might be on a Monday, but then we might not film again until Wednesday or Thursday. So there would be a full path of recovery,
“It was similar on season 5, but, because our days were not so intense in the make-up chair, we were able to do a few more days back to back.”
Vecna has a more streamlined appearance in season 5 which relied more heavily on CGI to create a more damaged look, which meant less time for the actor in the make-up chair.
Barrie said: “The way we actually manufactured the makeup was quite different to what we did on season 4. We had different materials and different mould-making procedures. We’d spend about three hours with him [in the chair], max.
“It was a lot easier for him to go to the bathroom this season as well.
“To get it off, there would be three of us taking the make-up off at the end of the day. We’d probably be looking at about 45 minutes to an hour, maybe, to get it off, de-rigged, clean, cleaned up, get some hot towels on him, all clean, send him on his way.”
