“Stranger Things” star Jamie Campbell Bower said getting into his Vecna costume took more than seven hours a day. And that may not have been the hardest part, as Sirius XM’s Caity Babs learned when she asked the actor how he peed while in character.
Bower said the top half of the costume was essentially glued on, but the bottom half was more like trousers with a flap that goes “from the chest [to] underneath my butt crack.”
Even with the flap, though, he needed help from the prosthetic makeup artist.
“Poor Duncan Jarman, who also fitted the suit on me,” Bower said. “Every day he’d have to be down there.”
Once the flap was open, Bower had another problem with the costume.
“I’ve got this big hand as well, like these huge fingers, then on the other side I’ve got these nails that are glued on so I can’t touch anything without everything fucking falling apart,” he said. “It’s not very easy.”
So, Bower needed someone else to stand at the bathroom door.
“I’m like hovering over the urinal,” he said. “The shame is so real.”
Jarman posted a clip of the interview on Instagram, writing: “Sometime you have to get close up and personal with your actors!”
Last month, the official “Stranger Things” Twitter account shared a video condensing the seven-hour makeup process into just 40 seconds.
While it didn’t share any bathroom breaks, the clip showed Vecna engaged in some activities that just don’t happen in the Upside Down, like chatting on the phone and sipping iced coffee:
Vanity Fair has a more detailed look at the process of creating Vecna, courtesy of makeup, prosthetics and visual effects whiz Barrie Gower: