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Bill Skarsgård Says He Made Children Cry On The 'IT' Set

Published Tue, 06 Jun 2017 18:15:14 -0500

Clowns are terrifying and they have been for years. The fear didn't get any better with the 1990 release of of IT which has been lurking in our nightmares for over twenty-five years. Everything that is old is new again though so it's time for a remake coming out this September just in time for Halloween and a whole new set of nightmares. Pennywise is being played by actor Bill Skarsgård and during a phone conversation with his brother Alexander for Interview (via Bloody-Disgusting) about his time on set with some child extras.

It's a really weird thing to go, "If I succeed at doing what I'm trying to do with this character, I'll traumatize kids." 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. At one point, they set up this entire scene, and these kids come in, and none of them have seen me yet. Their parents have brought them in, these little extras, right? And then I come out as Pennywise, and these kids—young, normal kids—I saw the reaction that they had. Some of them were really intrigued, but some couldn't look at me, and some were shaking. 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 shit. What am I doing? What is this? This is horrible."

Alexander went on to ask his brother if that was the first time he really realized how much this was going to impact kids despite the fact that they probably shouldn't be seeing it.

Yeah. But then we cut, and obviously I was all, "Hey, I'm sorry. This is pretend." [laughs]

It's one thing to be traumatized by Pennywise while watching a movie. It's another to look up and see Pennywise right in front of you when you can't really process that it's not real.

Summary: In Derry, Maine, seven friends come face-to-face with a shape shifter, who takes the form of an evil clown who targets children.

IT, directed by Andrés Muschietti, stars Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, Javier Bote, and Megan Charpentier. Prepare for a whole new set of nightmares on September 8, 2017.

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