Jamie Campbell Bower smiling on the red carpet.Image via Jonathan Brady/PA Images/INSTARimages
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Jen Vestuto
Published 53 minutes ago
Jen Vestuto is a TV Features Writer for Collider. A born and raised New Yorker, she started her career on set as a production assistant for shows like Law & Order: SVU and Person of Interest. In LA, she worked in the writers' rooms for The Vampire Diaries and Nancy Drew. Along with her writing partner, she joined the writing staff of Nancy Drew in Season 2 and stayed on the run of the show, which ended in 2022 with Season 4.
Jen grew up on Long Island in a loud Italian family. She's been writing creatively since she was in elementary school and would often make her younger sister act out scenes from her favorite movies with her. Jen is also a massive sports fan and was an athlete herself growing up.
Writing features for Collider gives her the opportunity to share her passion for great storytelling and compelling characters.
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Like many of the young actors who broke out on the Netflix hit series Stranger Things, Jamie Campbell Bower’s rise to mainstream fame has been meteoric. When Season 4 premiered, his turn as Henry Creel/One/Vecna became instantly iconic in a chilling, career-defining performance that reintroduced him to an entirely new audience. Bower’s layered work as the show’s ultimate villain, revealing a full spectrum of range from gentle vulnerability to terrifying malevolence, quickly cemented him as one of the season’s standout performers.
But over a decade before this star-making role, Bower played a very different kind of mythic figure, one that was almost entirely forgotten. In 2011, he stepped into the shoes of King Arthur in Camelot, a Starz fantasy series that quietly came and went after just one season. Though it didn't have the cultural impact everyone hoped for, the show gave Bower his first major leading role and an early glimpse of the range he’d later bring to his more mainstream performances.
What Is the Fantasy Series 'Camelot' About?
Premiering in 2011, Camelot was Starz’s ambitious attempt to put its own stamp on the King Arthur legend, just as prestige fantasy shows like Game of Thrones were taking off. Camelot opens with the death of King Uther (Sebastian Koch), leaving a young, untested Arthur (Bower) suddenly thrust into power during a moment of political upheaval. What follows is an edgy, darker, and more grounded take on the familiar myth, designed to feel accessible to a modern audience.
The series also boasted an impressive ensemble, especially for TV at the time. Joseph Fiennes plays Merlin with a sharp, morally ambiguous edge far removed from the benevolent wizard seen in lighter retellings like The Sword in the Stone. Eva Green delivered a deliciously venomous turn as Morgan Pendragon, Arthur’s ruthless half-sister and the show’s primary antagonist. Their volatile dynamic became the spine of the series, grounding the swords-and-sorcery setting in a brutal, emotionally charged family drama. Claire Forlani brought nuance to Igraine, Arthur’s estranged mother who ultimately becomes his ally, while Tamsin Egerton portrayed Guinevere with a youthful sincerity that aligned perfectly with the show’s coming-of-age tone.
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Posts 1 By Britta DeVore Jul 31, 2025One of Camelot’s most intriguing qualities was its dual approach to storytelling. The series embraced iconic King Arthur elements like the sword in the stone, the Arthur–Guinevere–Lancelot love triangle and even the early formation of the Round Table, but it treated them only as foundations. Like some earlier adaptations, Camelot used these touchstones as jumping-off points rather than strict canon. Showrunner Chris Chibnall and his team blended familiar myth with a fresher, more intimate take on a young Arthur, weaving the old and the new in a truly remarkable way. And even with a strong ensemble surrounding him, Jamie Campbell Bower often shined the brightest.
Jamie Campbell Bower's King Arthur Previewed His 'Stranger Things' Success
Jamie Campbell Bower as King Arthur in CamelotImage via Starz
King Arthur is one of the most frequently reimagined heroes in storytelling, played by legends ranging from Richard Harris to Sean Connery to Clive Owen. Jamie Campbell Bower was stepping into a long lineage of kings, but what he brought to Camelot was something uniquely his own. His Arthur doesn’t have the gravitas or authority of his predecessors, and that’s exactly what works. Rather than portraying the ruler Arthur eventually becomes, Bower leans into the character’s youth and is more of a coming-of-age hero rather than a fully formed king.
In a 2011 interview with Collider, Bower admitted he approached the iconic role “with fear and great trepidation,” but that nervous energy becomes part of what makes his performance compelling. Even among an impressive ensemble, he anchors the emotional core of the series, grounding the character in vulnerability and sensuality, which were essential qualities to the show’s romantic relationships and emerging love triangle. Watching him in Camelot now, it’s easy to see early flashes of the performer he’d become. Before that, he’d appeared in Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and portrayed the menacing Caius in The Twilight Saga, but Camelot was a different kind of challenge as his first true leading role, one that demanded range, emotional depth, and charisma. And he delivered.
Camelot also marked a meaningful turning point in Bower’s career, setting the stage for the darker, more complex characters that would follow, from The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones to Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. The leap from Arthur to Vecna is enormous, yet both roles showcase his talent for portraying characters grappling with identity, power, and inner turmoil. In Camelot, that struggle is rooted in insecurity and growth. In Stranger Things, it transforms into rage and corruption. Camelot may not have had the impact of Stranger Things, but it offered the first clear glimpse of an actor capable of something much bigger.
Jamie Campbell Bower is now best known as the chilling embodiment of Vecna, but long before he became the Upside Down’s greatest threat, he was busy forging a kingdom on Starz. Camelot faded into obscurity, but Bower’s performance as King Arthur remains a striking early chapter in his career. For fans curious about where his command of dark, mythic characters truly began, Camelot is a great place to start.
Camelot
Like TV-MA Drama Fantasy Release Date 2011 - 2011-00-00 Network Starz Directors Mikael Salomon, Jeremy Podeswa Writers Chris ChibnallCast
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Joseph Fiennes
Merlin
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Eva Green
Morgan
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Peter Mooney
Sir Kay
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Jamie Campbell Bower
King Arthur
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