Jamie Campbell Bower felt a "big sigh of relief" when he finally got to film season 5 of Stranger Things
The 37-year-old actor - who plays the villainous Vecna and his other incantations One, Henry Creel and Mr. Whatsit - admitted so much time passed since the 2022 release of the fourth season, he was delighted when the time came to express all his ideas about his alter egos after such a long wait.
6 January 2026
He told SFX magazine: One a personal level, this is something I've been carrying with me for four years and thinking about fairly consistently.
"So it felt like a big sigh of relief that we can begin.
"That's the truth. We can finally begin. Let's go!
"I want to get this out of me. It's all been in me for so long. So it definitely hit the ground running."
Showrunners The Duffer Brothers were keen to use Vecna sparingly so he would still seem a terrifying presence and Jamie doesn't wish he'd been in it more under that guise.
He said: "As this season develops and as our next tranches of episodes come out, you'll see more and experience more.
"It's such a huge undertaking with all these characters.
"It definitely felt at times like I had looked at the cake and been like, 'I'll have that'. This is a ginormous cake.
"So there was never a time when I was like I would have liked to have done more, because I felt like I had a lot going on already."
The actor teased that this season of the show feels bigger than any of the previous episodes.
Asked if it felt bigger, he said: "One hundred percent.
"Just reading the scripts alone, before even stepping onto set, that set-piece in episode four, it was like, 'Oh God, this is gonna be a lot.'
"Just in terms of visual and logistical elements.
"I've been fortunate enough to see most of the show now in its finality, and it just goes completely crazy.
"I was watching it like, 'Season four was wild, but this is nuts. This is nuts.' "
© 2026 Bang Showbiz, NZCity
