Jamie Campbell Bower, the actor who gives life to Vecna, a.k.a. Henry Creel, in Stranger Things, says he wants a break from playing villains. Vecna is likely the most memorable antagonist of the Netflix fantasy horror show, but Bower believes that he’s done with it after the show ends with Season 5: “It f*cks me up.”
During his 2025 Orlando MegaCon panel (via PEOPLE), Bower revealed that, even though he’s not worried about being typecast as a villain, he feels a bit tired of it. The actor shared that he even spoke to his therapist about this, and he’s “dead serious” about playing characters of a different nature in the future:
“We were going through some stuff, and he was like, ‘We really need to make sure that you carve out time for you whenever you’re working next.’ I turned around to him, and I was like, ‘Yeah, to be honest with you, man, I just don’t think I’ll be doing another bad guy for a minute.’“
Bower was introduced in Season 4 of Stranger Things as Henry Creel, one of the patients in Dr. Brenner’s facility where Eleven initially showed her powers. Eventually, Creel becomes Vecna, an extremely powerful deity-like entity in the Upside Down who’s able to brutally kill people after showing them traumatic experiences they’ve had. Bower will be at the center of the fifth and final season of the show, and like many, he showed his excitement for the upcoming series finale:
“It’s been amazing, and it’s been an incredible journey, to join the show from Season 4, to be part of something that so many people love and something that I loved as well and still love. But I definitely am ready to hang up the foam latex and wish him a slippery farewell.”
‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 – What We Know So Far
Jamie Campbell Bower was one of the few actors on the show who revealed early on that Stranger Things Season 5 was unlike anything we had ever seen before. “Completely insane,” he called it, and we couldn’t be more excited about what’s coming in the series finale. The fifth and final season is currently in post-production, and per recent reports, the show could be pushing for a 2025 release date. Stranger Things showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer are sure they can pull it off and release Season 5 this year, but Netflix has yet to make an official announcement.
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Season 5 will also feature the return of characters like Dr. Brenner, who was killed in Season 4, and Max, who we saw fall into a coma in the season finale. The return of other fan-favorite characters is still a mystery, as we have seen nothing, except a brief episode title teaser, for Season 5.
Stranger Things Season 5 will consist of eight episodes, but it’s still not confirmed whether they will be released weekly or in parts. The Duffer Brothers and the stars of the show have teased audiences with the running time of each episode, and have referred to them as “eight movies.” So far, the directors involved in Season 5 haven’t been confirmed. However, we do know that some of the episodes will be directed by the Duffers and Frank Darabont, who came out of retirement to participate in the Netflix juggernaut series.
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