Actor Wants to Drop ‘Bad Guy’ Roles After Dark STRANGER THINGS Part
By Movieguide® Contributor
Actor Jamie Campbell Bower says his villainous role on STRANGER THINGS required some conversations with a therapist.
Bower played Vecna in the last season of the popular sci-fi show, an intense bad-guy role that raised STRANGER THINGS’ fright-level to a PG-13 rating. During a recent fan event, the actor recalled a conversation he had with his therapist about the part.
“We were going through some stuff, and he was like, ‘We really need to make sure that you carve out time for you whenever you’re working next,’” Bower said. “I turned around to him, and I was like, ‘Yeah, to be honest with you, man, I just don’t think I’ll be doing another bad guy for a minute.’”
He added, “It [messes] me up. I’m dead serious.”
READ MORE: REPORT: STRANGER THINGS SEASON 4 INCREASES EXPLICIT CONTENT BY OVER 700%
Bower did acknowledge how grateful he is for the role, which he’ll be reprising in the next and final season of STRANGER THINGS.
“It’s been amazing, and it’s been an incredible journey, to join the show from season 4, to be part of something that so many people love and something that I loved as well and still love. But I definitely am ready to hang up the foam latex and wish him a slippery farewell,” he said.
Speaking about his experience working on Season 5, Bower shared, “It was really weird. It was just odd. Yeah, I had a few final days. Somebody took a photo of me after we finished the last scene and I just looked like a man that’s just been carrying so much weight for so long, and it’s just been like, there you go. So that’s how it felt.”
The actor added that he “was in tears” and “didn’t want to say goodbye, but I definitely was ready to put down what I had been doing for some time.”
“Because it’s not just about, when you do a show like that, it’s not just about shooting it. We had a break for a few years between season four and season five and then, obviously, we had the strike as well, and it’s constantly playing in my mind. So to let go of that has been, it’s definitely felt like I was sort of shedding,” he concluded.
There’s no word yet on when fans can expect the final season of STRANGER THINGS, but show creators Matt and Ross Duffer recently teased that it will be their “biggest and most ambitious season yet.”
“We think it’s our most personal story,” Matt said. “It was super intense and emotional to film — for us and for our actors. We’ve been making this show together for almost 10 years. There was a lot of crying. There was SO much crying. The show means so much to all of us, and everyone put their hearts and souls into it. And we hope — and believe — that passion will translate to the screen.”
READ MORE: STRANGER THINGS SEASON 4 IS A VIOLENT, UNACCEPTABLE BLOODBATH
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