Screa m Queen

jessica Chastain on Stephen King, Pennywise and her real-life fear…

are you a fan of stephen King’s writing?

Yeah. I remember reading Pet Sematary and Misery and The Shining. What I love is this psychological horror. You know, the monsters are actually something, in some sense, that you create – whether it’s loneliness or trying to keep your family together or whatever. For me, Pennywise is so frightening because a clown is a symbol of innocence, right?

It’s the betrayal of what that is.

did it genuinely unnerve you, acting opposite bill?

Even at the read-through. I was thinking, “Oh, whatever. No big deal. We’re all first meeting each other.” Everyone was being cool. No one was giving away too much. And then Bill starts reading. The line is “Boo!” and he literally turned to me and made me yelp. He really had an energy that you don’t expect.

Was part of your job to match your performance to sophia lillis, who plays young beverly?

That was most of my research, just watching Sophia because she’s such a wonderful actress, and she did such a beautiful job creating Beverly. I wanted to emulate that energy that she had. So there were little things, you know, like a wink. I’m not normally a winker. And I remember one day, I was handling a postcard and Andy

[Muschietti, director] came up to me and goes, “I like your hand!” He noticed I was doing something that Sophia did.

are you a scaredy-cat in real life?

I would have so many nightmares as a child, to the point where I would get in bed and I would cover myself with covers. I’d be sweating, so hot, needing some air, but I was afraid to take the covers off. Even now, if I’m walking at night, inside, and I look at a window, I’m afraid I’m going to see someone just standing there.