‘Stranger Things’ Jamie Campbell Bower Talked To Therapist About Not Wanting To Play Villains For A While: ‘F—s Me Up’​on February 18, 2025 at 3:44 am

Jamie Campbell Bower is looking forward to doing away with eight-hour special effects makeup applications for Vecna — and some of the other weight that comes with playing the arch-villain on Netflix‘s Stranger Things that aren’t so easy to wash off at the end of the day.

During a fan event for MegaCon Orlando, The Mortal Instruments actor admitted that he had discussions with his therapist about the mental toll of playing the hair-raising character, introduced in last season’s decidedly more PG-13 plotline.

“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.’ 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 said, per People.

“Like it f—s me up,” he added. “I’m dead serious.”

Naturally, Bower maintained that he was grateful for the role, but the timing of the final season may be as aligned as Vecna’s grand plans for the Upside Down.

“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 concluded.

While there is no release date yet for the fifth and last season of the hit YA series, creators and executive producers Matt and Ross Duffer teased to Deadline recently that the installment will their most ambitious spectacle yet, likening the experience to making “eight blockbuster movies.”

“We think it’s our most personal story,” Matt Duffer 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.”