“About Damn Time” is the No. 1 song in the country — and in the Upside Down. During his appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Jamie Campbell Bower demonstrated that even his evil Stranger Things character, Vecna, can get down to Lizzo‘s chart-topping summer anthem by hilariously reciting a few lyrics in the terrifying voice he used for the show.
Sitting on the Tonight Show‘s guest couch Tuesday night (Aug. 3) — about two months after he first made his Stranger Things debut when the sci-fi series’ fourth season dropped on Netflix — the 33-year-old actor first explained to Fallon how he developed the sinister, sub-bass voice he used while playing Vecna. “It started in this kind of nasally area, more like Freddie Kruger,” he said. “It just wasn’t landing.”
“I went home and worked on it, did a bunch of reference work on Hell Raiser and Doug Bradley particularly, and it said that this deep, booming voice kind of comes out of the darkness,” he continued. “I loved it, it was amazing. And I’m a singer, so I kind of just relaxed myself, relaxed my larynx.”
Fallon then asked Bower, whose new song “I Am” drops Aug. 12, to perform famous phrases that his character would never actually say in the Vecna voice. “I’m sorry about this, everyone,” the Mortal Instruments star joked before diving into his first challenge: Julia Roberts’ famous line from Notting Hill.
“I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her,” he growled, earning cheers from the audience.
After cycling through a few more — “I’m cuckoo for Coco Puffs,” and the classic Titanic reference, “Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your French girls” — Bower took it home with the TikTok-famous second verse of “About Damn Time.”
“This is for you, Jimmy,” he said in his normal voice, before switching back to demon mode. “In a minute I’ma need a sentimental man or woman to pump me up. Feeling fussy, walking in my Balenciussies, trying to bring out the fabulous.”
The chillingly deep Vecna voice is so much lower than Bower’s natural register, you’d assume it’s the result of post production audio editing the first few times you hear it. But the Twilight alum’s Lizzo tribute isn’t the first time he’s proved that the Vecna vocals are all his doing — in July, he posted a video captured by Stranger Things creators The Duffer Brothers of him recording dialogue, proving that the unhuman speech is 100% authentic.
Watch Jamie Campbell Bower recite “About Damn Time” as Vecna on The Tonight Show below:
