Jamie Campbell on reviving Vecna in ‘Stranger Things 5’

Jamie Campbell returns in Netflix’s Emmy-winning Sci-fi as grand villain, Vecna

By Ibtisam Fatima November 30, 2025
Jamie Campbell on reviving Vecna in ‘Stranger Things 5’
Jamie Campbell on reviving Vecna in ‘Stranger Things 5’

Jamie Campbell is back as Vecna in Stranger Things Season 5, and this time, he is in full glam, looking more terrifying than ever.

Campbell was introduced in Season 4 of Netflix’s Emmy-winning sci-fi series as the spine-chilling villain on the show. In the latest season, he returns as the pale, vascular-fleshed, spine-chilling villain with a rotting visage and intense eyes.

Although previous Vecna wasn’t any less of a show to put on, the bone-twisted Upside Down villain is more exalted in the new season.

The new look definitely took some extra special effects, digitally and practically.

“This season was definitely more of a blend between practical and CG,” Bower told Variety. “On a practicality level, the face is all prosthetics, the shoulders are prosthetics, the hands are prosthetics, but everything else is a morph suit.”

Bower says creating Vecna was a joint effort with makeup, effects, costume, and concept artists, crediting designers for their vision.

Bower credits prosthetic makeup chief Barrie Gower with maintaining Vecna’s imposing presence, even when he wasn’t fully suited up.

He wanted to feel “large” on camera, and Gower helped make that happen by adding shoulder pads and placing two sizable blocks inside the suit so Bower’s arms naturally hung wider, giving Vecna his unsettling, predatory stance.

Costume designer Amy Parris took it a step further, building three-inch lifts into his shoes to ensure he physically towered over everyone else on set.

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