Bill Skarsgard scared the living bejeezus out of all of us when he played Pennywise the Clown in New Line’s “It” last year — and now, the actor says the iconic character haunted his dreams well after shooting.
“I liken every character that I do to a relationship that you’re in,” Skarsgård told Entertainment Weekly. “Pennywise and Bill go into this sort of relationship together, and I’m trying to figure out who he is and I have to devote so much time and effort to this other person – or thing, in this case – and that goes on for months.”
He added, “After we wrapped, I was in my childhood home in Sweden, sitting having coffee with my mom at our kitchen table, and realized, ‘Oh, holy sh–, I don’t have to deal with this relationship anymore!’ It was a very quick shift of just feeling better, like, ‘Oh my God, I’m relieved that I don’t have to deal with the darkness of the character.’ I likened it to an exorcism – him exiting my body and getting rid of the Pennywise toxins.”
But that didn’t mean Pennywise was done with Skarsgard.
“I was home, done with the movie, and I started having very strange and vivid Pennywise dreams,” he said. “Every night, he came and visited.”
And like in the film, Pennywise took on different forms, depending on your own personal fear: “It was in the shape of either me dealing with him, sort of Pennywise as a separate entity of me, and then also me as Pennywise in circumstances that I didn’t appreciate. Like, I’m Pennywise and I’m really upset that I’m out in public and people are looking at me.”
Skarsgard will play the evil clown in the upcoming sequel, which will focus on the adult part of Stephen King’s famous novel. And Skarsgard is “good with it.”