THE SCREAM KING
With ‘It’ and ‘Castle Rock’, Bill Skarsgård is starring in your nightmares
Pennywise showed up in Toronto, Canada, last month—to Bill Skarsgård’s relief. Yes, relief. Production had begun on It: Chapter Two, the follow-up to 2017’s horror smash, and the actor who’d embodied Stephen King’s iconic child-devouring monster in the remake was about to do his first camera test. Director Andy Muschietti was back at the helm. Rehearsals had started. And Skarsgård had comfortably hung out with the new, adult Losers’ Club cast. Still, it had been more than a year since he last transformed into the creature. Would he be able to summon It back out of hibernation? “The character demands so much of you in terms of focus, concentration and energy,” he says. “It’s just so much.”
The 27-year-old needn’t have worried. In true Pennywise fashion, the dancing clown resurfaced “instantaneously”, Skarsgård recalls. “I was surprised,” he marvels. “He was there.” Then again, It never scared Skarsgård. He likes uncanny roles; it’s why he’s diving back into King’s fictional, tormented Maine on Castle Rock, US streaming network Hulu’s anthology series set just kilometres away from the nightmare-ridden Derry. Skarsgård stars as an unnamed, unsettling Shawshank prison inmate discovered underground. To portray a man who’s been literally kept in the dark for who-knows-how-long, Skarsgård lost weight, studied the psychological effects of solitary confinement and adopted a wounded posture—one he shed only in his trailer on set, where WHO stopped by in December. “It’s a fun, transformative character, very mysterious,” he explained. “I tend to like those types of characters ... you’re playing something very unlike yourself.” Just to be clear, playing otherworldly parts in back-to-back King (or King-adjacent) adaptations and becoming Hollywood’s leading bogeyman wasn’t Skarsgård’s plan. Sure, his biggest roles have preyed on fear, like three seasons as a halfhuman, half-vampire on Netflix’s Hemlock Grove, and even small turns like his acidspitting mutant in Deadpool 2, come with a dose of body horror, but it’s coincidence, not strategy. “It has turned out that way, and I do think you have to be mindful of the roles you take so you’re not too limited,” he says, “but I’m not worried.” It’s success has intimidated him more, despite his thespian pedigree— son of Stellan, brother of Alexander and Gustaf. When It hit cinemas last year, the movie broke the record for the highest-grossing horror film of all time. That meant losing Hollywood as a place where he could lie low. “I started my career in Sweden, so America was almost a refuge,” he says. “I would come over and nobody would know who I was. Now I … guess I can’t do that anymore.” He laughs, then sighs. “It’s strange. I’m trying to roll with it.”
That includes not engaging on social media, though he lurks using private accounts. So yes, he’s seen the fan art/fiction that cropped up after It— even the X-rated material. “I don’t know, man …” He trails off, sounding more amazed than afraid. “Attractions and fetishes come in all shapes and forms, so whatever works for you, you know? But I was definitely not trying to go for sexy in any sort of way. I’m a clown that eats children!”
And about to become “even angrier” in Chapter Two, Skarsgård teases. He starts shooting the sequel soon, but from there, who knows? “I want to use this little bit of momentum that I have to move on to the next step, to be able to really start developing my own projects,” he says. Because unlike Pennywise, Skarsgård doesn’t hibernate.
“I like playing something very unlike yourself”