This Essential 'Stranger Things 4' Star Has Terrified You Before
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*Spoiler warning: Heavy spoilers of Stranger Things 4, Volume 1 below*
Before Stranger Things 4, Volume 1 entered your life, Jamie Campbell Bower likely starred in one of your favorite movies about puberty-stricken teenagers fighting mythical creatures. Now that you've watched Stranger Things, Volume 1, Cambell Bower is probably the last person you want anywhere near your favorite child supervillain slayers.
In this season of Stranger Things, it's another day and another supernatural creature from The Upside Down that's hell-bent on terrorizing the youth of Hawkins, Indiana on Stranger Things. After Hawkins High’s head cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham (Grace Van Dien) is found dead and twisted like a bloody pretzel, Lt. Colonel Sullivan of the United States government tracks down Hawkins Lab’s former Director of Operations Sam Owens (Paul Reiser) to demand the location of Eleven, because he’s convinced the only person who can murder someone without touching them is the one person who’s destroyed a Demogorgon just by pointing the palm of her fist at it. There’s only one problem with his theory: Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) can’t make her annoying bully Angela move an inch with her powers, let alone break someone’s bones—because her powers are gone. That all begins to change after Owens reveals to Eleven that he may have a way to help her regain her power, including revisiting her past and working with the surprisingly-not-dead doctor dictator of her life, Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine).
Brenner and Owens place Eleven in a machine called Nina, a sensory deprivation tank with electrodes attached to her head in order to transport her back to her past life as a test subject in Hawkins Lab, so she can uncover the memory they theorize she’s suppressing and thus preventing her from tapping into her powers. While inside those memories, Eleven comes in contact with other test subjects like the prodigious and vicious Two. She also forms a bond with Jamie Campbell Bower’s character, who appears to simply be an employee of the lab and one of Dr. Brenner’s glorified babysitters.
But, as with almost anything in Stranger Things, the deeper Eleven digs into the truth, the more Campbell Bower’s character is turned upside down, quite literally.
Jamie Campbell Bower plays 001 in Stranger Things 4.
In Stranger Things 4, Campbell Bower's identity is cocooned in mystery, with a new layer revealed the deeper we get into Eleven’s subconscious. At first, we’re introduced to Campbell Bower as one of Brenner’s nameless helpers from the past, but he soon becomes El’s mysterious guardian angel, helping her tap into horrific memories to conjure her powers. He gets punished with electrocution after telling Eleven that Dr. Brenner lied to her about her mother dying during childbirth. He’s smart enough to use an ostensibly harmless game of chess with Eleven to inform her Dr. Brenner has been manipulating the other superpowered test subjects to murder Eleven right in front of the prying eye of Brenner’s surveillance cameras. After attempting to help Eleven escape, they are cornered by guards when the first layer of Campbell Bower’s character violently peels off.
After disposing of those guards with ease, Campbell Bower's character is revealed as 001, the first child Dr. Brenner comes across with psychokinetic abilities, who was believed to be dead. Campbell Bower’s character doesn’t just reveal himself as 001; he also ties a few loose ends by explaining how he’s also Henry Creel, the son of Victor Creel (Robert Englund), the man suspected of killing his family in 1959. This is when 001’s murderous side is shown. Eleven learns her memory of killing her fellow test subjects was incorrect—it was actually 001. She also learns that Victor Creel didn’t kill his family and that it was 001 who did so out of disdain for the human race and his family’s sinful behavior. It wasn't until we saw 001's true identity that we realized how important he's been to Stranger Things all season long.
Eleven rebuffs 001’s invitation to destroy all of humanity to his destructive displeasure, and the pair engage in a battle of psychokinetic powers that Eleven eventually wins. She disintegrates 001 into the Upside Down. Unfortunately, that doesn’t kill him; it exposes him to a flurry of lightning bolt shocks that transform him into Vecna, the big bad of this season, which has been killing people in another dimension. In five episodes, Campbell Bower went from a side character to arguably the most important villain of the Stranger Things series.
Jamie Campbell Bower was first known for musical theater and a major musical film.
Campbell Bower was born in London and only had music theater experience by the time he auditioned and scored a role as Anthony Hope in Tim Burton's musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the age of 18.
His breakout role on TV came a few years later, in 2011, when he landed the role of King Arthur in the Start historical drama Camelot, his first starring role in a TV series. But, his star began to ascend in 2009 when he took his first step into the supernatural for his role as vampire Caius from The Twilight Saga: New Moon.
Campbell Bower was also known for the Twilight and Fantastic Beasts franchises before Stranger Things 4.
He may be one of the newest additions to The Duffer Brothers’ sci-fi horror franchise, but you probably have recognized him around magical beings for the better part of the last decade. He’s appeared as immaculately flowing blonde-haired Caius in every Twilight Saga film between 2008-2012 except Twilight and Twilight Saga: Eclipse.
When he wasn’t trying to end Twilight’s Bella Swan and Edward Cullen’s undead romance, he’s appeared as Young Gellert Grindelwald in 2010’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
Campbell Bower isn’t straying too far from the otherworldly horrors for his next role as Ed Becker in the upcoming film True Haunting. Starring opposite The Boys’ Erin Moriarty, Campbell Bower plays a father who discovers his family’s newly purchased home is haunted by ghosts and seeks out the first-ever televised exorcism. True Haunting is set to be released in 2023, so it’s safe to say Campbell Bower will be scaring families worldwide long after Stranger Things 4, Volume 2 ends the penultimate season of the series on July 1.
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