Over the years, the master of horror, Stephen King, has created all kinds of terrifying characters. There's Jack Torrance, alcoholic writer-come-caretaker, who loses his mind and is driven to kill his family. There's Carrie White, the disturbed psychic teenager who wreaks havoc at her school prom. Then there's Christine, a sentient car which has been possessed by a malevolent ghost.
But there's no doubt that Pennywise the Dancing Clown, the shapeshifting boogeyman from IT, is the most frightening monster of them all, and the ensuing movies have reminded everyone of that fact. Indeed, Bill Skarsgard, the actor who portrays the eldritch horror, was rightly praised for being able to scare us all silly.
Take a look at the first trailer for IT Chapter Two:However, there were plenty of fans of the iconic horror movies who had no idea what the actor looked like under all that creepy clown makeup. As it turns out, Bill Skarsgard is actually a strikingly-handsome young man; something many people have been surprised to learn. Check him out if you don't believe me!
Bill Skarsgard is the son of Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard, who recently portrayed the historical official Boris Shcherbina in HBO's acclaimed miniseries Chernobyl. The 29-year-old actor has also appeared in the Charlize Theron movie Atomic Blonde, and had a brief cameo in the Deadpool sequel as a member of X-Force.
Commenting on his portrayal of the character in a recent interview, Skarsgard stated: "What we talked about going into the second one was like, 'All right, what is different with Pennywise, and how is he different in this new movie?' And of course, we talked about it a lot, where it's like he was defeated for the first time ever and he's come back for revenge."
He continued: "We talked a lot about [how] there's this kind of urge that maybe Pennywise really, really wants to be defeated finally and forever ... he's angry, he wants revenge. But there might be - if you can imagine such a thing as a subconscious of Pennywise - that it maybe is wanting to be destroyed."
Check out this creepy scene from IT Chapter Two:Skarsgard also added: "We can't have a Pennywise in this second movie who's weak. That's weakening the children. He wants them back and he's enjoying it and he's playing mind games with all the Losers, and maybe it's a little bit masochistic. But he craves them."
IT Chapter Two is already out in movie theatres in the US, and aside from Skarsgard stars James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransome and Andy Bean.