Stranger Things star says favourite series five episode had ‘important visitors’

By Lauren Del Fabbro, PA Entertainment Reporter

Stranger Things star Jamie Campbell Bower has revealed his favourite episode from the new series, teasing that there were some “very important visitors”.

The 37-year old British actor plays antagonist Vecna in the hit supernatural Netflix show which premiered part of its final season last week.

The first series of the coming-of-age drama follows a psychokinetic girl named Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown, as she escaped from a laboratory in Hawkins and makes friends with a group of local kids who embarked on a mission to find their friend Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) after he became lost in an alternative reality called the Upside Down.

Its fifth series sees Hawkins placed under a military quarantine and intensified hunt to find Eleven, as the group of friends come up against the evil Vecna for one final time.

Speaking at MCM Comic Con, Bower revealed that episode eight in the new series was his favourite adding that he will talk “more about it” after it comes out.

He said:  “Normally when you’re filming a show of this size, when you get to your final episodes you don’t have many visitors, and we had some visitors, some very important visitors coming on the day that I had no idea were going to be there.

“I was already tripping out about the scene. And it ended up being one of the most powerful things I think I laid down in the show.

“I’m gonna leave it there.”

Speaking about his inspirations for his performance as Vecna and Henry Creel, Bower said he used a combination of real people and fictional characters and has kept a book with all the references – adding that he will try and share it after the series is out.

He said: “So for Vecna I used Doug Bradley as Pinhead when I was making the voice. Even Christopher Lee as Dracula as well.

“I used a lot of movies, there’s a lot of vampire references for some reason. There’s a movie called Prince of Darkness that I used.

Meanwhile he described the 1997 psychological thriller Funny Games as a “huge inspiration” for creating Henry Creel, a boy with psychic abilities before becoming Vecna.

He added: “There were real people that I used for this season, without getting too much away. I used Mr. Rogers a lot more.

“There’s a film from the 50s of the story of the Pied Piper Of Hamelin. I used that as well.

“So it’s a combination of like both references and also like my own imagination, but I tend to stick up pictures of my references around wherever I’m living, and I have like a book that I keep with me.

“I tweeted about this book a couple weeks ago and I’m gonna share it with you at some point. I’m just figuring out with the team at Netflix how I would like to share that with you all, but I will share it with you all at some point. And it will have all of the references in it. All of my notes, all of my chaos.”

Created by the Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things first aired in 2016 and also stars Winona Ryder and David Harbour along with Finn Wolfhard, Sadie Sink, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Natalia Dyer and Maya Hawke.

The franchise has since expanded into a play, titled Stranger Things: The First Shadow, as well as an upcoming animated spin-off, Stranger Things: Tales From ’85.

Stranger Things volume two arrives on Boxing Day and the finale is on New Year’s Day.