There are spoilers for “Stranger Things” season 4 episodes 8 and 9 below.
Even Millie Bobby Brown’s superhuman Eleven, who has faced monsters from the Upside Down with some bravery, wasn’t prepared to face the most recent bad guy in Hawkins. The teenage actress broke down in tears during filming her first scene with Vecna, the not-so-attractive creator of the numerous creatures that have recently afflicted Hawkins.
Vecna is a gigantic, undead creature with a humanoid appearance in season four of “Stranger Things,” played by Jamie Campbell Bower. His body is covered in sinewy, slimy vines. The Duffer Brothers, who created the show, insisted that the character be created with physical effects and prosthetics rather than CGI in order to portray the creature accurately. Millie Bobby Brown cried when she first saw Bower because of the immaculate way that “Game of Thrones” prosthetics master Barrie Gower crafted the otherworldly-looking skin for him.
The biggest baddie Hawkins has ever seen
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Jamie Campbell Bower has a very attractive appearance. But the supervillain from “Stranger Things” isn’t. The actor put up with eight arduous hours of makeup application each day to portray the gigantic Vecna, the greatest evil Hawkins has ever seen.
Eleven has her powers back in “Stranger Things,” season 4 volume 2, and she finally faces up against Vecna in a combat that calls for extreme mental gymnastics from both of them. At one point, Vecna takes the upper hand and binds El with the vine extensions in his hive mind, temporarily disabling her abilities. In this moment, El and Vecna are talking too close together. Millie Bobby Brown didn’t anticipate speaking with the on-screen monster so intimately as the scene was being filmed, and his presence was too much for her.
“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.”
Millie Bobby Brown calmed down after she discovered it was Bower underneath
In an interview with Variety, Bower made the admission, saying that Brown had been “disgusted” by Vecna’s appearance.
Anyone who has seen “Stranger Things” will concur that Vecna’s appearance and behaviour are quite disturbing. He is a terrifyingly strong dark mage-like villain who will do anything to achieve his goals. On the show’s sets, Bower originally frightened Brown, but when she realised it was her co-star beneath all the bizarre makeup, Brown was able to relax.
The actor continued, “After she sobbed and I made it clear that she recognised me, one of the things she said was, ‘I knew it was you when I could smell cigarettes,’ since I smoke.