Bill Skarsgard says Pennywise will be more “vicious” in It: Chapter Two

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

On the eve of the trailer drop for IT: CHAPTER TWO, everyone is wondering what it will be like to see Pennywise back for another round of terror. The demon clown is upping his game this time around from scaring little kids whom he plans to feast on to taking the fight to adults who fought him back as kids. Obviously, that would shift his mood around a tad, and in a new interview actor Bill Skarsgard opened up about how his character is more vicious than he ever was before.

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The actor got candid with EW about his second and final outing as Pennywise the Dancing Clown and revealed some insight into where the monster is mentally this time around after suffering a defeat from the meddling Loser’s Club.

“The arc of the first movie is that he, for the first time, experiences fear himself. His last line — ‘Fear…’ — is him experiencing it for the first time, and he’s sort of shocked and perplexed and surprised. Like, what is this?”

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While before he was just looking for victims to lure into the sewers and devour, this time around there’s a revenge element as the adult Losers return to Derry to fight off the evil once again. But this time Pennywise is not clowning around.

“It fuels hatred and anger towards the kids, who will be adults in this one, so I think there might be an even more vicious Pennywise. He’s really going after it.”

So, in essence, if you thought Pennywise couldn’t get any freakier in the last movie, the sequel will be his Hold My Beer moment. He will understandably be angrier and more vengeful, and to get there Skarsgard no doubt had to go to some dark places. But now that the movie is done, he can shed the character once and for all.

“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.”

That may be easier said than done, though, as he recalled how after filming wrapped he started having “very strange and vivid” dreams about Pennywise, who “came and visited” each night. I mean, most people just dream about falling, so…

IT: CHAPTER TWO is in theaters September 6, and be sure to stick around for the trailer, which drops soon!