Fred.
That is horrifying.
Are we ready?
When I got the audition through for this show
I was given two sets of sides.
One was from Primal Fear, and the other
set of sides was from Hellraiser.
And then,
second week of January they’re like,
“Oh, Matt and Ross want to meet you.”
And I was like, “Oh my God, amazing.”
I didn't speak throughout the whole meeting.
Which is quite unusual for me because
I can be quite a chatterbox.
We've been talking about it since
season one that we wanted a
villain that could actually
speak to our characters, that could
sort of vocalize their motives
and their thoughts, and also to get
into our character's heads.
It is time, Max.
They just told me about the
character and they kept on saying,
“Oh, we love your voice. We love your voice.”
And I was thinking, “What you mean you love my voice?”
It's just how I talk.
And then at the end, they showed me
what they were sort of designing, the monster side of Henry as
or Vecna. And I just like, my mouth
fell to the floor and I remember
leaving their house and just being like,
That was so cool.
That was so awesome.
From what I knew of the character at that point, I’d already felt so invested.
So when they were like,
Hey, you got it I was like, “Oh my God.”
There was like a sigh of relief,
there was like tears, it was a big deal.
And then from there on in,
I was put into the room with Barrie Gower,
and Barrie and Duncan were designing Vecna.
My name is Barrie Gower and I'm
the prosthetics designer for
Stranger Things Season Four.
Vecna, it's a really fascinating character. He's humanoid but
we are basically integrating lots
of shapes and textures and forms
from the upside down.
So there's a lot of kind of roots and vines and we still have panels
of flesh which are very pale, almost anemic looking.
And the idea really is that the
exposed flesh that is pale
is human skin that hasn't seen sunlight for the last 20 years.
-It's so surreal.
Once we had a life cast of Jamie,
basically we want all the appliances
rather than having a rubber monster suit,
we were designing it as kind of a jigsaw puzzle,
which gives us a lot more fluid sort of movements.
We don't have much buckling,
we have a really skintight sort of look.
The first thing that I started
to think about was the
physicality of this person.
I knew that we were going to have
these long fingers
and just move my fingers around,
really slow. I’m moving them fast now because I'm excited.
But move my fingers around very slowly.
But then imagine them kind of being out here like this.
Matt and Ross were very clear that
they wanted this large, distorted hand.
When we started exploring the
character and looking at the design of it
we were quite confident that
we could do something practical
by using mechanical finger extensions to extend
Jamie's fingers 8 to 10 inches.
So they are aluminum jointed
finger extensions, and then it’s
a foam latex skin on the outside,
which gives a quite nice, smooth, organic sort of feel.
As a practical effects department,
we tend to work very closely with digital effects.
A lot of the best effects achieved now,
in TV and film
are a combination of the two.
In the long run, I think once we get
through to the finished product
There will be a combination of
practical and digital elements.
Thank you, dude.
-You’re doing great.
There he goes.
-It’s nice to meet you.
-Bye-bye guys.
Vecna is chilling.
Vecna understands us
on a human level and he understands
us and our vulnerabilities and knows
how to capitalize upon those to achieve exactly what he needs.
And he will stop at nothing.
Mom?
Just loosening this up for you, Sweetheart.
You're going to look absolutely beautiful.
Vecna essentially is targeting
people who are experiencing some
kind of grief or there's, you know,
some troubles that are happening in their life.
So they're emotionally vulnerable and fragile.
I mean, it's the first time we've seen a threat that's so human
because you've had the Demogorgon and the Mind Flayer,
but nothing quite like Vecna.
This is really the first time since season one that we're going back
to the world of prosthetics where we're actually
having someone in a suit, performing on the stage.
Selfishly, as an actor,
it's so incredibly helpful
because it's something real to look at.
And especially just his demeanor
on set and his performance and the
amount of himself that he would
bring after being in makeup
for I think 8 hours every day.
2 hours to maybe take it off.
That's a full work day for somebody.
Being face to face with
what is all practical effects and that was all completely him.
You feel so in the moment,
which is, you know, such a,
I felt like that was such a luxury.
Put at ease to know that,
I would actually have something to play off of.
And someone as amazing as Jamie
who's just so talented.
Your time is almost at an end.
Let go!
The first time I saw Vecna, it was
really, really surreal
because I was going into a rehearsal right after lunch, and I'm very
bubbly after and you know you are in your food coma.
And I walked on and I saw him
and he snapped his neck and looked at me.
And I'm there and I'm like fully in it,
like staring at people,
grunting, growling, pacing.
And I looked at him and I was like,
“What is that?” I didn’t know.
I thought this was going to be CGI. I didn’t know.
Bless her, she burst into tears.
The whole rehearsal I was crying.
And she was like, “That's not Jamie!”
And I'm crazy,
so I was like, yeah. I was like talking to her inside my mind.
I was like, “No, Jamie's dead. It's just. It’s just Vecna.”
It is over Eleven.
Your friends
have lost.
Jamie had to give me a hug because I couldn't do the scene.
So the fear was genuine, definitely very real.
I didn't have to act.
I was terrified.
You know, Vecna is not
some sort of sea creature from the deep.
This character is not chaos.
This character is very sure and certain
and attentive to everything that he’s doing.
I saw a means to realize my potential.
To become the predator
I was always born to be.
He felt like he was lied to,
as well as kind of ostracized from his family, isolated, alone.
Combine all these things together with the rage that he feels,
and all of a sudden, it's this sort of catalyst for terrifying events.
Tell her.
No!
Everything.
No!
When somebody is filled with so much rage
and so much resentment
and he's been alone in that for a number of years,
the human element is gone.
He's now out for blood.
He's now out for vengeance.
Maybe we'll save that story for another day.
It doesn't have a happy ending, I'm afraid.
That's it?
Beautiful.
I always feel like these things are like a school test.
Did I pass?