The Stranger Things Villain That Made Millie Bobby Brown Break Down In Tears
"Stranger Things" has featured plenty of memorable villains over the years, but none more terrifying, formidable, or grotesque than Vecna (Jamie Campbell-Bower). Introduced initially as just another mysterious, powerful figure based in the Upside Down, it's eventually revealed in "Stranger Things" Season 4 that Vecna is a disfigured Henry Creel, aka One, who was banished from the show's prime dimension by a young Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) prior to the premiere episode. Few of the series' villains have felt quite as dangerous as Vecna, and it turns out that "Stranger Things" fans weren't the only ones who were terrified when they met him for the first time.
In a July 2022 interview with Variety, Campbell-Bower revealed that his "Stranger Things" co-star Brown cried the first time that she filmed a scene with him in costume as Vecna. "They brought her up into a position where she's bound. I walked up to her [as Vecna] and she burst into tears," the actor recalled. "She wouldn't look at me and she was visibly just disgusted by the whole thing." He noted that it didn't take Brown long to recover from her initial, overwhelming reaction to seeing Vecna in person.
"After she cried and I made it obvious that she knew it was me, one of the things she said was that, 'I knew it was you when I could smell cigarettes,' because I'm a smoker," Campbell-Bower added. Unfortunately for Brown, it looks like she may still have, at the very least, one more scene to film opposite Vecna.
Stranger Things Season 5 will feature Vecna's return
The end of "Stranger Things" Season 4 suggests heavily that Vecna survived Nancy (Natalia Dyer), Robin (Maya Hawke), and Steve's (Joe Keery) attack on him. Indeed, after Nancy shoots him through the window of his attic lair, she and her friends come outside to find that his body is no longer where it landed. Will (Noah Schnapp) later senses that Vecna is still alive shortly before the show's heroes gather together in a field to look on as the Upside Down begins to spill over into their reality. This happens through the dimensional rifts created by Vecna's killings throughout "Stranger Things" Season 4.
The season's second-to-last shot of Eleven — her expression hardening as she watches Vecna's plan come to fruition — sets up yet another potential confrontation between the two characters. With that in mind, it's worth noting Matt and Ross Duffer confirmed that Vecna would return in "Stranger Things" Season 5 in a July 2022 interview on the "Happy, Sad, Confused" podcast, teasing, "He is still the big bad, for sure, of the final season." Jamie Campbell-Bower is also notably present in the "Stranger Things" Season 5 cast photo that was officially released when it began filming in January.
While fans know that Vecna will return when the Netflix series does, it's still unclear what he will do throughout its remaining episodes. A final showdown between him and Eleven seems all but certain, which means that Millie Bobby Brown and Campbell-Bower will likely work together again before everything is said and done. Given how quickly she got over Vecna's appearance, though, it doesn't seem like her next scene with the "Stranger Things" villain will be nearly as frightening for Brown as her first.