SKARSGARD OUT TO SCARE YOU
Bill Skarsgard, who terrified moviegoers with his sinister turn as a clown in It, talks about the chilling experiences he had on the sets of the psychological-horror series Castle Rock, which is based on Stephen King’s stories
Maybe it’s because he got most of the chills out of his system playing Pennywise the dancing clown in It (2017), or perhaps he’s simply got a strong constitution.
Either way, it takes a great deal to scare him. Still, there were moments during the filming of Hulu’s Castle Rock, set to debut on Wednesday, which gave him goosebumps. They came when he was escorted into a cell in a real West Virginia penitentiary and heard the door slam shut behind him. “There I was in this Gothic prison built during the Civil War, and supposedly it’s one of the most haunted places in America,” Bill Skarsgard recalled.
“You walk in there and you understand why it might be haunted.
“We shot in the solitary-confinement section,” he continued, “and I was sitting in a cell no bigger than a box. There was hardly room to move. When I looked around, I saw actual wall engravings and graffiti from the real prisoners who once spent time in those cells. It really got me into the mood, because it was horrifying that people spent years in those brutal conditions.
“I don’t really believe in ghosts,” Skarsgard said. “But there is something off with that place.”
What’s Castle Rock
The West Virginia prison was standing in for Shawshank Prison. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Castle Rock, an original 10-episode series, is based on the stories of Stephen King. Written by King and several others, its storyline intertwines characters and themes from the fictional town of Castle Rock, the setting for quite a few nightmares in King’s universe.
Castle Rock begins with lawyer Henry Deaver (Andre Holland) being summoned back to Castle Rock because of an unusual case at the prison involving a man (Skarsgard) found locked up in an odd place there. Henry reunites with his adoptive mother, Ruth (Sissy Spacek), and also has run-ins with characters including Jackie (Jane Levy), Alan (Scott Glenn), Dale (Terry O’Quinn) and Molly (Melanie Lynskey).
Wearing black jeans, a T-shirt and black boots for an interview in New York, the 27-year-old actor said that
I love to play characters so unlike me in real life. You look back at them later like old buddies, as in, ‘Oh yeah, we had fun.’” Bill Skarsgard
he hadn’t been told much about his character before filming started.
“I tried to get as much as I could out of them,” Skarsgard recalled, “because, when they first reached out to me about this project, I was hesitant. At the time I hadn’t read the script. Everything was being kept under locks and secrecy.”
Besides which, he was wary of being typecast as a horror actor – a reasonable fear, given that It, also based on a Stephen King story, has scored at the box office to the tune of $327 million domestically and a worldwide take of more than $700 million.
“Yeah, I just did It and played Pennywise,” Skarsgard said, “so I didn’t know about Castle Rock.”
Then he read the pilot.
“It was spectacular,” the actor said. “It really captivated me, and I loved the prisoner character because he’s just so mysterious. Then I met Dusty and Sam, and we had an hour-and-ahalf conversation. I left that meeting knowing I really wanted to do this, because it was something completely different (from It).
“Obviously it’s the same genre, and it’s true to the themes of Stephen King, but the character couldn’t be farther away from Pennywise.”
Secret plot
Skarsgard was immediately sworn to secrecy about all details of the series’ plot, of course, and that continues to be the case as Castle Rock nears its debut. In other words, nothing will be forthcoming on who his character is or what he’s doing in the prison.
“I can say that he’s a serious, dark, fringe character who is very different from who I am,” the actor said.
To get into the mood of the piece, Skarsgard had to delve into the shadowy world of King, again.
“I read Needful Things (Viking, 1991), which is set in Castle Rock,” he said. “I can’t really tell you what else I researched. I like to get deep into the psychology of where a character is to figure him out.”
This wasn’t Skarsgard’s first longform television project. He starred as Roman Godfrey in 33 episodes of the Netflix series Hemlock Grove (20132015).
“I love watching one story unfold in long form on TV. It’s what I watched growing up,” said Skarsgard, who was born in Sweden to actor Stellan Skarsgard and his first wife, and grew up as one of seven siblings, including three brothers who became actors, Alexander, Gustaf and Valter Skarsgard. “I remember, as a teenager, watching The
Sopranos (1999-2007), which was one of my favourites.”
Skarsgard was drawn to the family business, and earned his first credits on Swedish television. He made his film debut in White Water Fury (2000), followed by several Swedish movies. He then moved to Hollywood, where he has been seen in Anna Karenina (2012), The Divergent Series: Allegiant (2016) and Atomic Blonde (2017).
Television can be satisfying
Working on television is as satisfying as working on films, he said.
“You can really delve deep into a character,” Skarsgard explained. “I’ve always been intrigued by that fact, which is why I like the miniseries format so much.”
The format does have its own pitfalls, of course.
“You can create a confusion,” Skarsgard said. “Some shows prolong the mystery until they seem very confused to what it is in the first place, and you end up with five seasons of something that’s diluted toward the end. Castle Rock has a definite beginning, middle and end. There is a progression and huge character development.
“I think, for an actor, that’s amazing,” he said. “Every two episodes is a feature film, so we’ve essentially made five feature films.” He’s currently at work on It:
Chapter Two, the 2019 sequel to the 2017 smash, which itself was based on only half the original King novel. He has fond memories of the original film and its cast, especially the young people with whom he shot most of his scenes.
“The kids in It are such professionals,” he said. “Beyond that, what I think is important in being around kids or raising them is that you treat them with the respect you would an adult. That’s what I did while we were filming It. All of us listened to their ideas and encouraged them to be who they are. We respected them for their minds. In return, we got amazing performances.”
Ready for It Chapter 2
With Castle Rock and It: Chapter Two on his slate, it’s clear that Skarsgard has gotten over those worries about being pigeonholed as a horror actor.
“I don’t approach it any differently than any other genre,” he said. “It can be a horror scene or a love scene. You just try to find some truth it in.”
In the sequel the kids are adults who are called back to town when the evil clown Pennywise reappears. Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Jay Ryan and James Ranscone play the grown-up versions of Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough, Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom and Eddie Kaspbrak. The younger actors also resume their roles for flashbacks.
As for Skarsgard, he has his clown pants on again. “I love to play characters so unlike me in real life,” he said. “You look back at them later like old buddies, as in, ‘Oh yeah, we had fun.’”
The international success of It,a global blockbuster despite an absence of capes, masks or lightsabers, is something that still amazes the actor.
“I still haven’t really wrapped my head around it,” Skarsgard admitted. “It’s surreal. I know we worked really hard on that movie. I worked really hard to try to make that character something new. I was terrified at how people would react. Would they hate it? What if I let people down? Then I decided not to think about it at all.
“When it became a huge success, I was really happy,” he concluded. “I was just glad that people enjoyed it.”