Interview: Director Andy Muschietti and Co-Star Bill Skarsgård on Bringing a New Pennywise to Life for IT (2017)

While there are numerous elements that go into successfully adapting Stephen King’s acclaimed novel IT, there’s no denying that probably the biggest key to capturing the horror of King’s timeless tale is making sure you get the character of Pennywise right. This was certainly something on the minds of both director Andy Muschietti and IT co-star Bill Skarsgård, who was tasked with creating a new face of evil in the upcoming adaptation.

During a recent press day for IT, the duo chatted about how they worked together on the character of Pennywise, developing trust between themselves, fighting fear, and more.

Look for IT in theaters everywhere this weekend, courtesy of Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema.

Bill and Andy, how did you guys work together on the character of Pennywise, and how much of your physical performance was informed by how the camera moved with this character?

Bill Skarsgård: It was an interesting process for me because I like to be very involved, but it's also the director's film, too, and so you have to go in and be willing to try all these things that they want in particular. But with this one, I had no idea what anything looked like. I didn't know how my face with the makeup on looked like, and how it translated onto the screen. So for the first time, I was much more curious to see what it was that we were doing. The studio wouldn't give me any access to the dailies, but Andy would, so I would sit and study what we already shot.

I felt that, for this role, it was important to see what I was doing and how it translated into the screen—all the things I thought about and talked about with Andy, all the makeup and everything. So it was unique because for the first time ever, the technical aspects of the character were so incredibly important, because there were minor differences in how the light would hit the face and the chin when I moved, which read differently and affected the visual impact of the character.

Andy Muschietti: Yeah, I totally see why you feel that way. Because when we started, we talked for hours about what the character was, and we mostly agreed on everything of what the character should be. But talks are just the beginning. Then it's building this character. We talked a lot about the unpredictable behavior of Pennywise as part of his dread and his impact as a monster. And with Bill, we have a guy here that is committed and fearless. He just took the concept of “what is this monster and how do we make him unpredictable” and ran with it.

And I think one of the greatest things Bill brought is embracing that concept of unpredictability, and really giving something new at every point. I was so surprised and so gratified to see him doing things, because he was not only surprising the audience—he was surprising me at every point. And he was maybe surprising himself at times, too.

Bill Skarsgård: In the end, the fear and being fearless is such a topical thing for the movie, right? I knew going into this, but really, at the beginning, just auditioning for this movie was a fun thing to do. Like, there's an audition for Pennywise, and you can do whatever you want with it. There are no instructions. There's not anything that describes why Pennywise would be either one way or the other. It could be young. It could be old. It could be a girl. It could be a guy. It could be any ethnicity. There's nothing that limits the character. And all characters that I've gone up for are usually sort of limited to who you are in a sense, but this was not.

When I finally booked the job, I'm like, “Holy shit, I'm doing this now! Oh my God, what do I do with it?” Maybe I had just fooled all these people into trusting me. So there was this fear on my part going into it, especially because Andy was really fighting for me throughout the casting process, and he really pushed everyone about making sure I was this character.

I was in Toronto leading up to production, and I was thinking to myself, “How am I going to pull this off?” This fear started creeping in, of people having opinions and anticipations, and that they would have expectations that I'm not going to live up to. I felt that people were almost anxious to shit on whatever I was going to do here.

But then I would remind myself that Andy believes in what you're doing here, and Barbara [Muschietti, one of the producers] as well. They're happy that you're here, and they believe in you. So that was enough for me to just fu**ing go with it, because I knew I couldn't have any fear and I couldn't pull anything back, either. I trust Andy, and I trust Barbara, and I'm going to give them all I have. I wouldn't be able to make the character any other way.

Andy Muschietti: But I think it worked both ways, too, because when we met, we bonded really quickly. And there was a very quick development of trust, because I didn't have all the answers. So I trusted you, and you trusted me. I didn't know that you were afraid, though [laughs].

How did you come at the character of Pennywise for this version of IT and find ways to make it your own?

Bill Skarsgård: I think the way we approached it was that this is our new take on it, and I think on my part, it was like, “I'm just going to do my interpretation and my performance of Pennywise.” Also, with Andy designing the look and everything, it's just a completely different, new take on this iconic character. Andy might be better to answer this, but even in casting me as the role, we weren't trying to do this older Pennywise that Tim Curry did so well. We're doing something different.

Andy Muschietti: Absolutely. Yeah, I did a few sketches of the look of Pennywise, and it was already like something else than what’s in the movie. It was like a baby with Gerber baby hair, and his eyes are wall-eyed. Little did I know that Bill can actually do that [laughs]. So, from the beginning, it was already something different, because I believe that there's something in the nature of the character from the original work that was worth bringing into it.

It's not part of the general conception of the character, but it's a very important little detail, and it has to do with the nature of the character. It’s all very speculative with the book because the point of view is from the kids, and everything they know about It is just them guessing. But there's this thing that basically implies that Pennywise might be a product of the children's imagination, and there’s this moment where we jump into the mind of Pennywise, too, and his thoughts are so simple: "The turtle is stupid. I hate it. It doesn't do anything all day." All those things are very childlike. Ultimately, I wanted to bring this contrast between something that is cute and lovable, but is also horrifying at the same time.

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To catch up on our previous coverage of the new IT movie, including our review, visit here.