VirginieQL

Few actors have moved so effortlessly between darkness and tenderness as #JamieCampbellBower. From The Twilight Saga and Stranger Things to his latest role as Celeborn in The Rings of Power, @Jamiebower has spent almost two decades inhabiting extraordinary worlds - and the complicated humans within them. Now, as he steps into Tolkien’s Middle-earth, he reflects on the unexpected parallels between his characters: pain, love, vulnerability and the power of choosing how to respond. “I personally find fantasy, at times, to be a place where we can truly see what it would mean to coexist peacefully,” he says. After years spent inside Vecna’s darkness, Celeborn offered something different: catharsis, sensitivity and surrender. “Softness is not an easy thing to conquer,” Bower observes. “You just have to fall into it.” That shift towards softness has become a defining thread in his thinking. Bower speaks candidly about self-protection, the difficulty of vulnerability and the connections that become possible when those walls disappear. “The most beautiful connections with people come when that is gone, when it is completely removed,” he says. For the Autumn issue, Bower opens up about fantasy, love, art and self-protection, reflecting on the stories that shape us and why “Storytelling and art have the power to remind us of the soul.” Out next week!