Millie Bobby Brown Admitted She Knew Jamie Campbell Bower Was in the Vecna Suit Because of His Smell

Stranger Things 4‘s Vecna is a gnarly and scary monster that would scare just about anyone. Leading actor Millie Bobby Brown burst into tears during her intense scene with Jamie Campbell Bower dressed as Vecna. Bower’s becoming Vecna took hours in the makeup chair to transform him into a detailed, grotesque, burned villain. But the actor reveals how Brown felt safe knowing he was in the suit.

Vecna warns Eleven that she made him the monster in ‘Stranger Things’ 4

The fourth season’s final episode has Eleven and Vecna head-on in a battle to save Max from imminent death. While Eleven is in Max’s mind fighting Vecna, he gets the upper hand and has her sequestered. To save everyone and herself, she tries to appeal to Vecna as Henry Creel.

She explains that Papa used him, and he was the real villain. But Vecna sees it differently and tells Eleven that Papa was a mediocre man who could not shape them into what they needed to become. Vecna instead tells Eleven she made him the monster he has become. The scene in Stranger Things 4 is intense as Vecna gets up close and personal with Eleven.

Fans can see the vines moving in Vecna’s neck, the nooks and crannies, and the missing nose. Vecna would cause fear in anyone, and it did in Brown. In an interview with Variety, Jamie Cambell Bower revealed, “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.”

But the newcomer to the Netflix series comically reveals how Brown could distinguish the actor from the layers of horror makeup and him as Vecna.

Jamie Campbell Bower’s smoking habit helped ease Millie Boby Brown

In a Netflix behind-the-scenes video, and got to see Bower slowly disappear and transform into Vecna in the makeup chair. Anyone walking in on the moment would have never guessed Bower was underneath the makeup if it not were for his Venti-sized Starbucks coffee.

Bower has become infamous for his acting methods that got him into character as Vecna. The actor listened to thrasher metal, did not speak to anyone, sat in the dark, and carried around a dead spider in a glass cylinder. When it came to filming scenes, Bower disappeared, and Vecna arose.

In an interview with IGN, Bower explained after Brown burst into tears at the sight of him, “I gave her distance, and then let her know it was me. And I think that made her much more comfortable.” But the actor says Brown had an interesting way of differentiating him from Vecna.

“Although she did say the only way that she could tell that it was me is because I smelled of cigarettes, that’s because I’m a smoker,” said Bower. The actor as Vecna even scarred a child actor. “Through nothing else other than just doing what I was told. Let me make that perfectly clear!” said Bower to Vulture.

Jamie Campbell Bower scared people as Vecna, but he loved playing the villain

The actor has previously revealed that he does not see Vecna as the bad guy everyone has made him to be. In an interview with GQ, he explains, “So he’s not there to just cause chaos for the sake of causing chaos. He’s there to change the world because he sees the world as a very dangerous and toxic place for him to live in, where people aren’t really themselves. And he wants to show people that it’s necessary to be yourself, I suppose, in some way.”

Bower says getting into the right mindset to play Vecna and Henry Creel was “actually really good fun.” When it comes to his next role, the actor explains he gravitates toward villains, not the good guys. “I’m not looking for something that’s surface. I don’t like it when I read a script and it’s trying to be purposefully funny. What’s the depth behind that? Come on, show me more about this person. That’s what fills me with joy.”

Fans will see more of Bower as the heinous villain of the Upside Down in Stranger Things 5.