Jamie Campbell Bower: ‘On the other side there’s always something beautiful’

After 18 years in the storytelling business, with three massive franchises under his belt and a fourth to come, Jamie Campbell Bower knows how he wants to present himself. He’s just spent a Sunday afternoon posing for his Rolling Stone UK cover story, but he’s still fresh and brimming with enthusiasm for the “beautiful, freeing experience” of making photos with a styling team he feels comfortable with. “I wouldn’t consider myself your typical suit-wearing man – it’s not what I like,” says the actor, musician and occasional model.

“I like things that are effeminate and flowing and sort of blending worlds.” A day before this shoot, Bower walked the runway at Paris Fashion Week for elegantly gothic label Ann Demeulemeester, which he calls an “amazing” but “fucking terrifying” experience. “I was like, ‘What am I doing here? I’m an actor!’” he says. “But I love what they’re about [as a brand] and feel so creatively inspired by them. They’re very music-oriented and very art-focused.”

Bower, 36, who recently moved back to the UK after several years living and working in Los Angeles, can trace his own slightly androgynous style to teenage adventures during “the heyday of the London indie music scene”. Before he was Dumbledore’s lover Gellert Grindelwald in the Harry Potter franchise, or the ancient vampire Caius in three Twilight movies, or the villainous Vecna in Netflix phenomenon Stranger Things, Bower played drums in a short-lived indie band called William K. “We’d all borrow our girlfriends’ jeans – girlfriends from school. Like, ‘How tight are your drainpipes?’” he recalls. “And we’d always wear a lot of eyeliner and stuff like that.”

Bower looks back at this period fondly as a “real community thing” where “you’d go to your local venue to see bands you’d like and express yourself in something like nu-rave.” 

Music remains integral to his artistic identity. Between 2015 and 2020, he fronted London punk band COUNTERFEIT., who were named Best Live Act at the 2017 AIM Independent Music Awards. And since then, he’s released a stream of solo singles as Jamie Bower, including 2022’s dark country stomper ‘I Am’ and last year’s gothic chiller ‘The Witch of Bodmin Moor’. But we’re not here today, sitting in the upstairs nook of an east London photographer’s studio, to reminisce about the scuzzy glamour of the “indie sleaze” era. We’re here to discuss his magnetic role in Stranger Things as Vecna, aka Henry Creel. His portrayal of a gruesome humanoid with dazzling psychokinetic powers and alarming psychopathic tendencies is the reason he is the winner of The Television Award at the ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025.

In the first part of the show’s fifth and final season, which drops on Netflix on 26 November, one character describes Vecna as a “wrinkled noseless rotting bastard” – a sick burn that Bower bats away today: “Don’t listen to the vile vitriol that is spewed by others!” The first three elements of this diss can be attributed to Vecna’s time in the Upside Down, a malevolent parallel dimension that poses an ongoing threat to the residents of Hawkins, Indiana, a Spielbergian small town filled with strange goings-on. But the “bastard” part is a little more complicated. 

Vecna’s desperately sad backstory is fleshed out in a hugely successful stage spin-off, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which has run in London’s West End since November 2023, and on Broadway since March this year. 

Bower says attending the show’s first opening night in London was a “highly emotionally charged” moment, partly because it brought him back to the Phoenix Theatre, where eight years earlier he had starred in Bend It Like Beckham: The Musical. But above all, he says it was “wildly emotional” watching Louis McCartney portray Henry Creel, a traumatised 1940s teenager who will eventually become the vindictive serial killer Vecna. Bower had originated the dual role of Vecna and an older Henry Creel in the fourth season of Stranger Things a year earlier. “I know this boy, and to see those things [about him] presented in front of me, which were things that I had considered anyway, made it all feel so real,” Bower says. “I just wanted to give him a hug.” 

Bower says seeing the play was “definitely helpful” when he reprised his role in Stranger Things’ fifth and final season, which arrives over three years after the fourth. When he first created Vecna back in 2022, he started with the character’s sinister voice. “The script described him as having this big booming voice, so I had to find the truth in that,” he recalls. “You know, I could do a [generic] monster voice, which would have been fine. But there was something about this [role], and where I was artistically at that point, that made me want to feel every single moment of this. His voice had to come from a place of real truth.” 

The show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, told Bower that Vecna was influenced by Pinhead, the demonic antagonist played by Doug Bradley in 1987 horror film Hellraiser. So, Bower used the same “precise, considered” enunciation used by Bradley as his “starting reference”. 

“I have, like most artists, imposter syndrome. It’s just there. So I have a wealth of material that’s sat on my computer that occasionally is like: ‘Go on, put me out’

Portraying Vecna in all his repulsive glory – his body is covered in vine-like tentacles, a physical reflection of his integration with the Upside Down – was especially painstaking in season four. Barrie Gower, the show’s prosthetic makeup designer, has said it took seven hours on average to turn Bower into a mangled, mottled monster. Today, Bower laughs about the memes of him sipping an iced coffee while makeup artists diligently work on Vecna’s complexion, but also says it’s misleading. Typically, he’d arrive on set at 2am – yes, really – and read or meditate before using music to help him get into character. 

“When we would start the process, the music would be in a more folk, black metal kind of space, but as time ticked on, the music would become harder and faster,” he recalls. “By the time I went on set, it was almost like being in the state of a boxer getting ready to fight.” Because Vecna undergoes a physical “shift” in season five, extreme prosthetics were no longer required, so Bower relied on muscle memory to recreate the character’s menacing “presence and gait”. 

Bower’s Stranger Things performance is doubly impressive because he also portrays Vecna in his human form. As Henry Creel, a resentful loner born with brutal supernatural powers, he exhibits a mesmeric intensity that feels malevolent but never manic. At the start of season five, Henry/Vecna is still finding mind-bending new ways to use his powers: he’s nothing if not “highly intelligent”, Bower points out. When he first read the final batch of scripts, Bower says his immediate response was: “OK, here we go again. Like, now there’s new parts of myself that I have to bring [to this character], and new things that I want to be doing with the knowledge that I have.” 

At this point in his career, Bower is adept at avoiding spoilers. That’s just as well, because Stranger Things’ final season is being released incrementally by Netflix  for maximum impact. The first four episodes drop on 26 November, followed by another three on Christmas Day and the big series finale on New Year’s Eve. “If you thought the first four episodes were wild, just you wait,” Bower teases. “I mean, I can’t even remember how many pages long the final episode was, but it’s a huge payoff to a show that has seen the viewers and the cast through childhood. It’s not often you get a chance to be part of something like that.” 

Did his time on two other huge franchises, Harry Potter and Twilight, prepare him for all the hype and excitement surrounding this one? “I would definitely agree with that,” Bowers replies. “Something like Twilight was culturally massive, but because I was a smaller part, I was on the periphery and sort of able to step in and out and see it all from a really incredible vantage point.” Bower portrayed Caius, an ancient leader of a vampire coven called the Volturi, in three of the five movies based on Stephenie Meyer’s romantic fantasy novels. The film series as a whole grossed over $3.3 billion worldwide. “You know, that did give me the tools to be, like, ‘This isn’t about me,’” he continues. “It’s never about any actor. Anybody could have played this part. I’m just fortunate that it was me.”

Bower’s Twilight stint between 2009 and 2011 overlapped with his initial foray into the wizarding world of Harry Potter. After portraying the young Gellert Grindelwald in 2010’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part I, he reprised the role in 2018’s spin-off film Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, in which the older Gellert is played by Johnny Depp. 

Bower speaks about his career with the easy zeal of someone who has found their ideal creative outlets and still loves being challenged. “I was born wanting to do this. I mean, when I was 14, I potentially wanted to be a marine biologist, but really, it was always acting and music for me – 100 per cent,” he says. At nine, he booked his first job – a spoken-word part on a Christmas album by Kenny Loggins – through his mother, who was working for a record label. “It was a lot of money for a nine-year-old – I think I saved it and put it towards my first car.” 

Working with Loggins was a fun diversion, but Bower really found his calling at a local youth theatre in Hampshire, where he grew up. He made his stage debut as the French Mouse in Alice in Wonderland, then appeared in productions of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Bugsy Malone and Guys and Dolls. “It was something I adored, and [which] gave me the confidence to be the person that I am today,” he says. At 12, he joined the National Youth Music Theatre, which led to a teenage role in The Dreaming, a musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that played in Edinburgh, Guildford and London. 

Today, he says his parents were “very kind” to “find the right educational environment for me to flourish” – namely, arty boarding school Bedales, whose alumni include Daniel Day-Lewis and Cara Delevingne. “My parents lived really close, but I asked if I could board [there] because I wanted to be in that creative environment all the time – like, I wanted to be able to play music until 9pm at night,” he says. “I know I’m wildly fortunate that the school I went to was heavily catered towards that [kind of expression].” 

“By the time I went on set, it was almost like being in the state of a boxer getting ready to fight”

Bower’s break came when his friend Laura Michelle Kelly, who had recently starred in the West End production of Mary Poppins, put him in touch with her agent, Simon Beresford. Bower met with him to discuss which drama schools he should apply to, but the agent was impressed by his youth theatre experience. Shortly afterwards, Beresford suggested he audition for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Tim Burton’s movie adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical. Bower responded with youthful enthusiasm: “Fuck it, let’s do it!” Much to his surprise, he landed a supporting role as the gentle sailor Anthony Hope, then learned on the job as he navigated a set populated by acting greats like Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall. “I learned what a mark is, I learned where to stand for your light, I learned how a camera works – it was an amazing experience,” he says, still sounding bowled over by the opportunity. 

When it hit cinemas in 2007, Sweeney Todd gave Bower rising star status – one early newspaper interview was titled “He’s 19, He’s Beautiful and He’s Bloody Good”. Small but high-profile film roles in Twilight and Harry Potter followed, as well as a larger one in a 2013 fantasy blockbuster The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. Bower also starred in a couple of TV series, 2009’s The Prisoner and 2011’s Camelot but regards a later TV project as a creative breakthrough. In the historical TV drama Will, he embodied queer Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe as he is entranced by his literary rival William Shakespeare (Laurie Davidson). “I became so immersed in that character and felt so connected to Craig Pearce, who was writing the series,” he says. “I really found my footing in terms of being able to be expressively free in an environment that is wildly unnatural.” In 2017, the year that Will aired, Bower’s band COUNTERFEIT. released their debut album Together We Are Stronger, so it was a fiercely creative period all round. 

Though he’s been prolific as an actor and a musician, Bower’s creative journey hasn’t been without obstacles. In the past, he has spoken movingly about struggling with addiction and mental health issues earlier in his career. In July 2022, he wrote on Twitter (now X) that he was “seven-and-a-half years clean and sober”, having been “in active addiction” five years before that. He also revealed that he had received hospital treatment for his mental health. Bower’s post, which drew widespread praise from addiction charities, offered a hopeful message to others in recovery: “For anyone who wakes up thinking ‘Oh God, not again,’ I promise you there’s a way… we are all works in progress.” Today, he acknowledges that he has been “vocal” about his “journey of recovery”, but also says he feels “protective” over this aspect of his life. “I will say this: without my journey of recovery, I wouldn’t be sat here today talking to you,” he says. “I wouldn’t be doing the job that I do now, and I wouldn’t have been able to do some incredible things that I’ve done.” 

Vecna’s last hurrah in Stranger Things should lead to more incredible things, but this year has already given Bower several “pinch-me” moments. In February, he shared a stunning cover of ‘Euclid’ by mysterious alt-metal band Sleep Token, but only after an 11th-hour wobble. “That song moved me, it hit me like a train, but I had no intention of releasing my cover at all,” he says. In fact, Bower deleted his version of ‘Euclid’ an hour after he first posted it, only to change his mind and re-upload it a day later. “I was like, ‘This is a world that I adore, but this isn’t my song, and I don’t want to be stepping on anyone’s toes,’” he says. “But I did it anyway, and then the band reached [out] and said: ‘This is amazing.’” The members of Sleep Token have never revealed their true identities, so they communicated their approval with a simple Instagram DM “that had no initials at the end”.

“I will say this: without my journey of recovery, I wouldn’t be sat here today talking to you”

‘Euclid’ was also warmly received by Bower’s fans, so can we expect more new music in a similar vein? “I don’t like to release things based on strategy; I like to release things when they feel good and when they feel right from within,” he says. “That being said, I have, like most artists, imposter syndrome. It’s just there. So I have a wealth of material that’s sat on my computer that occasionally is like: ‘Go on, put me out.’ And I’m like, ‘No, no, I can’t put you out.’” Still, he considers it a “blessing” whenever he’s paid a compliment by a musician he admires. “I was fortunate enough to meet Chelsea Wolfe at the fashion show last night, and she was like, ‘I’m a big fan.’ That is crazy to me!” he says with a smile. Bower has also received positive feedback from Sam Carter of metalcore band Architects. “I feel very welcomed by those people, and that’s really, really kind,” he says. “But there’s still that voice in my head that goes, ‘Yeah, you’re not worth it. So, don’t do it.’ I don’t know where that voice comes from, I’ll figure it out in time.” 

His immediate future as an actor is more sewn up. Earlier this year, he landed a series regular role in the third season of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, but it’s so under wraps that he can’t even say who he’s playing. Another high-profile franchise straight after Stranger Things looks like terrific momentum, but Bower has learned to keep things in perspective. “I used to think that a career was a constant upward trajectory, but no career is like that,” he says. “It’s always on the move, but it’s up and down, and you have to recognise that. I’ve had fallow years, and I feel like it’s been [sustained by] my higher power or whatever you want to call it going: ‘How much do you want this?’ And me going: ‘I really want this. I love it more than anything.’ You just have to ride through it. Because on the other side, there’s always something beautiful.” 

Taken from the December/January issue of Rolling Stone UK, out now. Order your copy of the magazine here.

Photographer: Melanie Lehmann
Stylist: Steven Huang
Grooming: Sven Bayerbach at Carol Hayes Management using Maria Nila and Erborian