Meet 2019’s most terrifying pensioner
We speak to Pennywise’s latest form in It: Chapter Two — a sweet old lady who actually “gets scared easily”
HORROR HAS A new face. Glimpsed in the first trailer for It: Chapter Two is the mysterious Mrs Kersh (Joan Gregson), who lives in the childhood home of Beverly (Jessica Chastain)
— a seemingly innocent elderly woman who, it emerges, is actually a form of It, the cosmic demon better known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The trailer scared the bejesus out of anyone who watched it. Including, it seems, Mrs Kersh herself.
“I’m not a horror fan,” Gregson says to Empire with a chuckle. “I get scared easily.” The French-canadian actor has six decades of work on her CV (including, notably, the 1999 Stephen King miniseries Storm Of The Century), but nothing like the terrifying Mrs Kersh. “It’s my first horror, and I had a wonderful time,” says Gregson. “I thoroughly enjoyed working with Andy [Muschietti, the director] and Jessica Chastain.”
Gregson had not read King’s original novel (“I have to listen to audio books, my eyesight is going”), but did watch the 2017 It film. “It was scary,” she admits, “but I watched it with fascination, because there’s so much psychology in that film.”
She’s keeping schtum about the exact horror her character unleashes (“You’ll have to see the movie”), but describes Muschietti’s direction as unique, shepherding her through the sequence with military precision. “Andy was wonderful. He would say, ‘Okay, do this, do that, now go!’ I was guided by what he was telling me to do. I’ve never had that kind of direction before.”
It clearly worked: the trailer became a huge hit online, with over 40 million views to date, turning the grandmotherof-five into something of an overnight horror sensation. “The reaction has been quite extraordinary. My daughter sent me something the other day where I’ve been lampooned,” Gregson says, referring to the meme following the trailer. “I nearly died!”
As for seeing the final product, Gregson has reservations. “I’m really looking forward to it — and I’m scared to death, actually, because I know there are lots of things that are just going to terrify me. One of my daughters is refusing to see it. I may jump out of my skin at some point.” If you get scared watching It: Chapter Two, it may be a comfort that you won’t be the only one.