The following contains minor spoilers for Stranger Things Season 4, Volume 2, now on Netflix.
Stranger Things' Jamie Campbell Bower revealed that his character, Vecna, in his monstrous getup made fellow actor Millie Bobby Brown cry.
In an interview with Variety, Bower shared Vecna's grotesque appearance from being in the Upside-Down brought the actor playing Eleven to tears when she saw him for the first time in full costume. "[Brown] is so receptive and open and honest and childlike that anything that's meant to be scary and should be scary, feels terrifying for her," he explained. "They brought her up into a position where she’s bound. I walked up to her [as Vecna] and she burst into tears. She wouldn’t look at me and she was visibly just disgusted by the whole thing."
Brown realized quite quickly who exactly was donning all that makeup, thanks to a particular habit she recognized. "After she cried and I made it obvious that she knew it was me, one of the things she said was that, 'I knew it was you when I could smell cigarettes,' because I’m a smoker," Bower laughed.
Vecna's monstrous appearance was actually created with very little CGI as the Duffer Brothers wanted the Season 4 villain to be constructed using prosthetics and other practical effects. Designer Barrie Gower, who has previously worked on Game of Thrones and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, was brought onboard to help realize the Duffer Brothers' vision for Vecna. The finished product had Bower in the makeup chair for seven and a half hours each day, with him having to arrive on set at 3am to have 25 pieces of latex and silicone rubber material glued on him using a medical adhesive. It would then take around an hour to remove after Bower spent around 10 to 12 hours filming the show.
Divided into two volumes, the fourth season of Stranger Things is set eight months after the events of Season 3 and follows three different plotlines. The first story features Dustin Henderson, Max Mayfield, Lucas and Erica Sinclair, Steve Harrington, Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley, and Eddie Munson as they try to solve a murder mystery, while the second plotline sees Eleven trying to regain her powers with Mike Wheeler and Will and Jonathan Byers. The last story revolves around Joyce Byers and Murray Bauman as they try to rescue Jim Hopper from the hands of a Russian gang.
All four seasons of Stranger Things are available to stream on Netflix.
Source: Variety