Before Vecna, Jamie Campbell Bower Was The Harry Potter Villain You Forgot
The final Stranger Things Season 5 trailer has fans spotting Harry Potter echoes — and for good reason: before he was Vecna, Jamie Campbell Bower was already part of the wizarding world.
After the final Stranger Things 5 trailer hit, the internet immediately started pointing out all the Harry Potter vibes. Fair enough. The twist a lot of folks miss: the guy playing the show’s Big Bad literally came from the wizarding world. Yep, Jamie Campbell Bower was Young Gellert Grindelwald long before he was peeling back minds in the Upside Down.
Wait, Jamie Campbell Bower was in Harry Potter?
He was. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Bower pops up as Young Grindelwald, the future dark wizard who would go toe-to-toe with Dumbledore. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance, but even in those few moments he threads that tricky needle: charming on the surface, dangerous underneath. It’s the kind of micro-performance you forget you saw until years later you go, oh, that tracks.
From a flashback to a full-blown nightmare
Fast forward to Stranger Things 4 and Bower goes all-in as Vecna, the series’ most terrifying villain to date. Under layers of prosthetics and hours of makeup, he gives the monster a painfully human center. That’s why Vecna lands so hard: he’s not just a rubber-suit boogeyman, he’s a broken person who curdled into something awful. It’s a nasty, compelling swing that turns a brief wizard cameo into one of TV’s most memorable villains.
- 2010: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 — Bower plays Young Grindelwald in a brief flashback.
- 2022: Stranger Things 4 — he becomes Vecna, bringing a disturbingly human edge to the show’s biggest threat.
- 2025: At MegaCon Orlando (via People), Bower says the role pushed him into deeper therapy conversations and he may step back from villain roles for a while.
- Now: Fans are spotting the HP parallels in the new Stranger Things 5 trailer, which makes Bower’s wizard-to-Vecna pipeline feel oddly inevitable.
The toll of playing the monster
Bower has been pretty candid about how much Vecna took out of him. Speaking at MegaCon Orlando in February 2025 (via People), he said the performance sparked serious talks with his therapist about making space for himself while working. He also hinted he’s tapping the brakes on playing another heavy anytime soon.
'I just don’t think I’ll be doing another bad guy for a minute.'
He didn’t sugarcoat the emotional hangover either, making it clear the darkness lingers after the cameras stop rolling. Not exactly surprising when you spend months buried under prosthetics, whispering sweet nihilism into Hawkins’ collective psyche.
Where to watch
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is streaming on Peacock. Stranger Things (seasons 1–4) is on Netflix, with season 5 on the way.
Would you miss Bower chewing scenery as a villain, or are you ready to see him switch lanes? I’m curious where he goes next.