Bill Skarsgard is going to be your biggest nightmare come September, when he appears as Pennywise the Clown in the highly anticipated Stephen King adaptation “It.” But a producer on the film said Tilda Swinton was in the running to play the iconic monster.
“I swear to God,” producer Barbara Muschietti told Playlist. “We had a slot to shoot the movie and she wasn’t available, so she didn’t even audition. But of course, we all thought about her.”
“Bill came in and blew our socks off,” Barbara added. “Because he was doing his very own interpretation of Pennywise, very erudite…very, very familiar with the novel and with Pennywise in the novel, which for us was a huge help, because we went into the casting process with the book in mind.”
The kids that get threatened by the diabolical clown are played by Finn Wolfhard, Jaeden Lieberher, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs and Jeremy Ray Taylor. Andres Muschietti directed.
While Swinton will not star as Pennywise, she will next be seen in Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” and in Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs.”
“It” arrives in theaters Sept. 8.
Let's Revisit the 1990 'It' TV Miniseries: 5 Floating Facts About Pennywise and Friends
With the new film "It" in theaters now, we asked John Campopiano -- one of several filmmakers doing a documentary about the 1990 version of Stephen King's "It" -- to take us deep into the history of that TV miniseries. Here are five things we didn't know.
Stephen King has said he decided to make his scary creature a clown because clowns scare children more than anything else. "They do have that kind of monstrous thing going for them," he told Conan O'Brien.
Jonathan Brandis, who portrayed young Bill Denbrough in "It," had worked on another Stephen King film adaptation the year prior. He did the voiceover for the opening scenes of the 1989 film "Pet Sematary."
Tim Curry's Pennywise makeup changed quite a bit during the production. It went from being very dramatic and articulated to more subdued. Curry had recently worked on the film "Legend" and was not excited about being in a lot of makeup again. He and director Tommy Lee Wallace agreed that he would have minimal makeup.
Despite being set in Derry, Maine, the miniseries was actually shot in and around Vancouver, British Columbia.
Many fans dislike the ending of the miniseries, specifically the scenes involving the giant spider. Even cast and crew members, including Wallace, have expressed disappointment with how it came together.
Bonus: King once had his own scary interaction with a clown: a man dressed as Ronald McDonald once said next to him on a first-class flight, lit up a cigarette and ordered a gin and tonic. He told King he had come "from McDonaldland."
With the new film ”It“ in theaters, we look back at the miniseries that made everyone hate clowns
With the new film "It" in theaters now, we asked John Campopiano -- one of several filmmakers doing a documentary about the 1990 version of Stephen King's "It" -- to take us deep into the history of that TV miniseries. Here are five things we didn't know.
