Posted in: HBO, TV | Tagged: IT, it: welcome to derry, welcome to derry

It: Welcome to Derry: Miles Ekhardt Discusses "Visceral" Series Opener

Miles Ekhardt discusses his memorable turn as Matty Clements in HBO's It: Welcome to Derry and that shocking premiere episode car scene.

When Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, and Jason Fuchs looked to expand Stephen King's It in the HBO prequel It: Welcome to Derry, there was a mystique as far as how the series will handle the origins of the franchise's signature villain Pennywise with Bill Skarsgård reprising his role from the 2017 and 2019 films that adapted the novels with the primary story set in 1962. Like its film counterpart, Welcome to Derry focuses on multiple narratives, and one of the earliest was in the premiere episode, "The Pilot," where Matty Clements (Miles Ekhardt), who knows something isn't right in the town of Derry, participates in arguably the episode's most visceral moment. After getting picked up by a family in a vehicle, he gets way more than he bargains for as the family falls into a trance and a demon baby emerges with flying wings. Ekhardt spoke to Bleeding Cool about how he got involved, his familiarity with King's work, filming the car scene, and if he still has the song "Ya Got Trouble" stuck in his head.

Miles Ekhardt Reflects on "Visceral" Pilot Episode of It: Welcome to Derry

What intrigued you about It: Welcome to Derry, and how did you find yourself involved?

I found myself involved, like I suspect many other actors do, by auditioning. In my case, just coming a little self-tape way back when, in like, 2022, I think, sending that in and just waiting, waiting, and waiting until eventually I did a little callback over Zoom and found out they wanted me to be in that.

How familiar were you with Stephen King's work, and did you reach the original end?

Before I went through the audition process for the role, I had never touched Stephen King. Since then, I have read through It. It's a strange, strange, and very long book.

What's it like working with Andy on the show?

Oh, I loved working with Andy Muschietti. I haven't worked with all too many directors in my day; still a pretty new career for me. He has this way of going through all the shots, zoning in on this creation in every scene. It's building up to finally shooting the closeups, where he's constantly building and layering all these directions and notes he's giving people. In the end, he's able to get some really good performances out of people. I loved working with him.

I'd like to discuss the car scene in "The Pilot," and I was wondering how you filmed it and if it was challenging?

On my end, it wasn't all too hard. That was filmed over a long time. Putting together the inside and outside of that, which was five or so days of filming. I didn't get as connected to the emotional impact, but there definitely is some element of having to get in character for that every time, for like nine hours a day. You must get into that state of being absolutely terrified of what's happening here. There was a little difficulty, but in general, I was able to stay disconnected enough while I wasn't actively performing, so it was fun to film.

Did you end up seeing what it looked like in the episode itself?

Yeah, I saw that a few months before the show came out. I was curious how all of that would be put together in the final cut, because on set I'm just seeing a little rubber baby flying around a car, and it's strange trying to see what this final vision will be, but then I got to, and whew! They made some eerie stuff there.

Did you have a hard time getting that song, "Ya Got Trouble," out of your head, or is it just something that just goes in one ear and out the other?

No, it's still with me, at least the verse we do at the end of episode one. I don't know if I will ever forget this song for the rest of my life.

Have we seen your most challenging scene from the series yet, or have we not encountered it?

Well, I can't talk too much about what scenes may or may not happen in later episodes, but in the ones that, in episode one, which is all I've really appeared in, I'd have to say the hardest scene for me to film was the flashback scene with Matty and Lilly (Clara Stack). For me, I don't find it too hard to connect to fear and to be screaming really hard to be let out of the car. Those are very visceral, but acting like that subtle growing love for someone, there's so much more subtlety to that, and I definitely had to think a lot more about how I would be portraying that scene.

It: Welcome to Derry, which also stars Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Matilda Lawler, Amanda Christine, Blake Cameron James, Arian S. Cartaya, Mikkal Karim-Fidler, Jack Molloy Legault, Matilda Legault, Chris Chalk, Peter Outerbridge, and Madeleine Stowe, airs Sundays on HBO through December 14th.

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