The Stranger Things Scene That Grossed Out Millie Bobby Brown
Note: spoilers for episodes 8 and 9 of "Stranger Things" season 4 below.
Millie Bobby Brown's superpowered Eleven has been rather brave during her battles with monsters of the Upside Down, but even she wasn't ready to meet the latest big bad in her town of Hawkins. Filming her first scene with Vecna, the not-so-good-looking creator of the many monsters that have recently plagued Hawkins, caused the young actress to burst into tears.
In "Stranger Things" season 4, Jamie Campbell Bower portrays Vecna, an undead, towering, humanoid-looking creature with sinewy, fleshy vines on his body. To represent the creature authentically, the show's creators, the Duffer Brothers, requested that the character be built with practical effects and prosthetics instead of CGI. Prosthetics mastermind Barrie Gower (renowned for his work on "Game of Thrones") created the otherworldly-looking skin for Bower so flawlessly that it made Millie Bobby Brown cry when she first saw him.
The biggest baddie Hawkins has ever seen
Listen. Jamie Campbell Bower is very nice to look at. His "Stranger Things" supervillain, however, isn't. The actor endured eight grueling hours of makeup every day to play the monstrous Vecna, the biggest villain the town of Hawkins has ever seen.
In "Stranger Things," season 4 volume 2, Eleven has her powers again, and she's finally up against Vecna in a battle that requires severe mental gymnastics from both of them. Vecna gains the upper hand at one point and binds El with the vine extensions in his hive mind, rendering her powers useless, if only for a few moments. El and Vecna stand too close during their conversation in this scene. When the sequence was being filmed, Millie Bobby Brown didn't expect to converse with the on-screen monster so closely, and his appearance was too much for her.
Bower made the revelation during an interview with Variety, sharing that Brown was "disgusted" by Vecna's appearance.
"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
Anyone who has watched "Stranger Things" will agree that Vecna is pretty terrifying — in appearance and action. He's an all-powerful dark mage-like villain who will go to frightening lengths to get what he wants. Bower initially creeped his co-star out on the show's sets, but Brown was able to feel more relaxed when she recognized it was her co-star under all the outlandish makeup.
"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," the actor added.
Variety reported that Bower's transformation was a long, exhausting process and required 25 pieces of latex and silicone rubber material to be glued to his body using a medical adhesive. Its realistic appearance ensured that Bower had an ominous presence on the set. Well, naturally. There are people in jeans, and then there's one guy looking like he's straight out of a horror movie. It's no wonder Millie Bobby Brown was terrified by him, even if just momentarily!