Bill Skarsgård's First Audition For Pennywise Is Creepy As Hell

Bill Skarsgård's first audition for the role of Pennywise the clown in horror movie It is seriously creepy. Check it out:

The actor was widely praised for his interpretation of Stephen King's killer clown, and looking at his very early incarnations of the character, you can see he was pretty ideal from the start.

Even before he was plastered in terrifying make-up and dressed up in costume, there's something truly unnerving about Skarsgård's transformation as he becomes Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

And Skarsgård had some pretty big shoes to fill, with Tim Curry taking on the role in the original 1990 mini-series and managing to give just about every '90s kid an irrational fear of clowns.

But it's fair to say he absolutely smashed it - so much so that during filming he left a bunch of kids traumatised.

YouTube

Speaking to Movie Pilot back in 2017, he said: "At one point, they set up this entire scene, and these kids come in, and none of them have seen me yet.

"Their parents have brought them in, these little extras, right? And then I come out as Pennywise, and these kids - young, normal kids - I saw the reaction that they had.

"Some of them were really intrigued, but some couldn't look at me, and some were shaking.

"This one kid started crying. He started to cry and the director yelled, 'Action!'

"And when they say 'action,' I am completely in character.

"So some of these kids got terrified and started to cry in the middle of the take, and then I realised, 'Holy s***. What am I doing? What is this? This is horrible.'"

Yep, that does sound fairly horrible for all concerned, if I'm being honest.

Warner Bros

And the horribleness didn't stop there, as Skarsgård has also previously said that taking on the role of Pennywise was a pretty rough experience.

In an interview with the New York Times, he admitted: "Everything I did took 100 percent of my energy.

"It was by far the most exhausting character I've ever done, physically and mentally."

Of course, it wasn't so awful that Skarsgård wasn't happy to come back for It Chapter Two in 2019, which once again saw him smash his performance as the demonic entity.

No doubt he's since left a whole new generation of kids with coulrophobia.

Topics: TV and Film, Celebrity

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]

@ClaireReid19