You can't play a child-murdering clown and expect to walk away unscathed.
When you get into the mindset of an evil ancient entity, you might wind up in some pretty dark
places, like Bill Skarsgard has.
Here's why the Swedish star has never quite been the same since It.
Pennywise is, without a doubt, Skarsgard's most famous role to date, and for a good reason.
The actor's portrayal of a killer clown has received near-universal praise among critics
and filmgoers.
One of the key reasons for all of the praise is the physicality of the role.
Regarding his part, the actor told the New York Times,
"Everything I did took 100 percent of my energy.
It was by far the most exhausting character I've ever done, physically and mentally."
In the Blu-Ray special feature "Pennywise Lives!," Skarsgard spoke about the physical
considerations of playing Pennywise, saying he often passed on using stunt doubles.
"Pennywise's physicality must be Pennywise's physicality, and I wanted to bring my movement
and physicality in as much as I could."
Except for physically dangerous scenes, Skarsgard insisted on always playing Pennywise himself,
a decision that frequently left him utterly exhausted on set.
How does one begin to portray an inhuman shapeshifter that literally feeds off of the fear of other
beings?
One way that Skarsgard went about this was to think about how Pennywise interacted with
the other characters in the film.
Skarsgard told Entertainment Weekly,
"I liken every character that I do to a relationship that you're in.
Pennywise and Bill go into this sort of relationship together, and I'm trying to figure out who
he is, and I have to devote so much time and effort to this other person - or thing, in
this case - and that goes on for months."
In an interview with Collider, Skarsgard further elaborated on his approach to playing Pennywise,
telling them about how he tried to get into Pennywise's head to better understand the
creature, saying,
"It really enjoyed being the clown.
He preferred to take the shape of the clown.
Obviously, that opened ways of thinking.
Why does he prefer being the clown?
But also there is this sense of enjoyment.
The entity that is 'It' is enjoying being the clown.
There were a lot of abstract ways to look at it.
I tried to take all of those into consideration when I embodied the character."
While Skarsgard managed to scare audiences around the world, his fellow actors also found
themselves frequently unsettled by Pennywise while working on the film.
Because the majority of It surrounds Pennywise with the members of the so-called Losers'
Club, many of the scenes require Skarsgard to work directly with the child actors.
To keep the children's reactions as realistic as possible, Skarsgard tried to stay in character
whenever he was working.
He explained to Interview magazine,
"On set, I wasn't very friendly or goofy.
I tried to maintain some sort of weirdness about the character, at least when I was in
all the makeup."
Additionally, when he was in costume, Skarsgard was kept completely separate from the actors
playing his young victims between takes.
Because of this, the children had no idea what Pennywise would look like in each scene.
Bill recalled when he realized just how effective this separation tactic was.
He told Interview,
"This one kid started crying.
He started to cry and the director yelled, 'Action!'
And when they say 'action,' I am completely in character.
So some of these kids got terrified and started to cry in the middle of the take, and then
I realized, 'Holy s---.
What am I doing?
What is this?
This is horrible.'"
When preparing to play in It, Bill Skarsgard saw his connection to Pennywise as a toxic
relationship, although one that had some good moments.
As he explained to Entertainment Weekly,
"It's just like being in a very destructive relationship.
[…] All your friends go, 'You need to dump this piece of s---, he or she is destroying
your life.'
And then once you're out of it, you see, 'I was so miserable.'
But I wouldn't say I was miserable doing Pennywise because I had a lot of fun with it, as well."
Considering the emotional toll of playing Pennywise, it's no surprise that Skarsgard
felt relief after filming for It concluded.
"Every scene I'm in in this film is just 100% energy at all times."
He told EW that after finishing up the first movie, he went back to his childhood home
in Sweden.
And one day, he was visiting with his mom, enjoying the coffee and the company, when
he suddenly realized that he was free from Pennywise.
He explained,
"It was a very quick shift of just feeling better, like, 'Oh my god, I'm relieved that
I don't have to deal with the darkness of the character.
I likened it to an exorcism - him exiting my body and getting rid of the Pennywise toxins."
Skarsgard's Pennywise didn't just scare moviegoers.
Skarsgard himself was haunted by the killer clown even after filming concluded.
He told Entertainment Weekly,
"I was home, done with the movie, and I started having very strange and vivid Pennywise dreams.
Every night, he came and visited."
Skarsgard further elaborated on the dreams, saying that they generally took one of two
forms.
In one, he was having to deal with Pennywise as "a separate entity."
In the other type, he found himself as Pennywise in weird situations, like "out in public,"
with people staring at him.
Though the thought of Pennywise haunting someone's dreams is without a doubt a terrifying premise,
the actor sees his nightly visits from Pennywise in a more optimistic light.
Skarsgard believes these dreams are his psyche attempting to, quote, "let the character go."
Despite these dark dreams, Skarsgard thinks he's in a good place.
As he explained to EW,
"It was amazing.
It's a daunting but exciting thing to sort of revisit him again.
[…] I'm good with it."
Despite the trouble Bill Skarsgard went through after playing Pennywise the first time around,
it was inevitable that he'd have to step back into his clown shoes for the sequel.
After spending so much time and devoting so much emotional energy to being free of Pennywise,
Skarsgard told Collider in an interview that he didn't have any trouble getting back in
touch with the dancing clown.
As he explained,
"I was surprised how much of the character was just there already.
I instantly could access him again, like it was yesterday that we wrapped the first one.
It was just all there.
So, the work and preparation and figuring out the character is almost intuitive, which
is pretty cool."
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