Spoiler Alert: This story contains spoilers for Season 5, Volume 2 of Stranger Things, now available on Netflix.
Jamie Campbell Bower is no stranger to playing big bads, whether his name is Vecna, Wang, or Henry. But in Stranger Things Volume 2, he takes the character a step further with perhaps his creepiest yet, cult leader-like performance as Mr. What’s It.
“Jim Jones was an early reference for me,” Bower said, citing the leader of the Peoples Temple cult that led more than 900 members to mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, in November 1978. “Even when the kids were in front of me, he was on the mood board. I used to think, should I use the word ‘you’ or should I use the word ‘we’? We’re family now.” That’s really bad! There must have been that level of cult leader-ness to him, because it completely removes the concept of autonomy. ”
Although Mr. WhatsIt doesn’t seem as villainous as Vecna, playing a different character was just as “terrifying,” Bower says. “It was very scary to play that.”
His approach to Season 5 as a whole was very different from Season 4, where he was building up Henry’s memories.
“What you saw in Season 4 actually happened and it was real. It’s like, how kind can I be to these poor kids to make them feel as comfortable as possible in this world? And how much of my own experience am I embedding in that? And when you’re sitting across from another actor and your intentions are so deeply embedded, it’s always a really scary prospect,” he says. “There’s a level of real dishonesty there, and that’s really scary. Especially with kids, it’s really difficult.”
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When Bower first took on the role, he spoke to Variety about the humanity he focused on when playing Vecna. It’s a little harder to access now, as the characters get worse and kill more people, but Bower says it’s still there.
“I do see humanity,” he says now. “How much is covered in this volume is open to debate and interpretation. There are undoubtedly traumas and experiences that exist but are currently unexplored.”
Bower, who had watched the show’s prequel, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, ahead of Season 5, knew that what happened to Henry in the cave at the age of eight was a “life-changing” and “monumental experience” – and Henry was never the same after that. He then asked the Duffer brothers for more information about Henry’s early life.
“That was something that I really felt I needed to hear from Matt and Ross Duffer. They weren’t very forthcoming about it, because obviously they wanted to keep it, but it was important to me to know what it was and why it happened,” he says. “So it was just a matter of taking what I learned from the play and taking it home with me, or just getting frustrated and asking questions.”
In Episode 6, as Max (Sadie Sink) and Holly (Nell Fisher) explore Henry’s memories to find a way out of his mental landscape, they discover what may be the answer to what happened to him. In a mine shaft, young Henry encounters a wounded man with a silver suitcase, who panics and shoots Henry in the hand. Holly and Max watch as Henry begins the incident by beating a man to death in self-defense, but Max stops Holly. When asked what was in that silver suitcase, Bower teased with one word: “Reason.”
What can he say about the series finale, which will be released on Netflix on December 31st? Expect the unexpected. The final scene of episode 7, “The Bridge,” sees Henry and his twelve kidnapped children, most of whom worship him as much as any cult leader, join hands at Creel’s dinner table. He needs them to complete Vecna’s quest to remake the world, perhaps replacing Lightside Up with the Abyss.
“The end of 7 is a great preparation for what’s to come. And if you think you know what’s going to happen at the beginning of 8, you’re probably wrong,” Bower says. “That’s really bad. Everything you think you know will be surpassed.”
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• All spoilers for The Duffer Brothers Breakdown Volume 1
• 13 burning questions for the series finale
• Noah Schnapp talks about that scene in Volume 2
• Noah Schnapp about the transformation scene in Volume 1 (spoilers)
• Why does Will appear during earthquakes?
• Director Shawn Levy talks about Will’s breakthrough
• Sadie Sink talks about Max’s important role in Volume 1
• Nell Fisher talks about playing Holly Wheeler in Season 5
• “Stranger Things” performers on the show’s final day.
• Variety’s “Stranger Things” Oct. 15 cover story on the Duffers.
• Cara Buono talks about Karen’s kick-ass hero moment (finally)
• “Stranger Things” spin-off Duffer Brothers
• Linda Hamilton says she’s Millie Bobby Brown’s ‘biggest fan’
• Shawn Levy talks about Season 5’s ‘Sticking the Landing’
• David Harbor talks about how ‘Stranger Things’ changed him
