In 1990 verscheen er de TV mini serie It, die gebaseerd was op Stephen Kings gelijknamige boek. Deze vertelde het verhaal van een groepje kinderen die door een demoon in clowns vorm onder de naam Pennywiste terroriseerde en verantwoordelijk was voor een serie verdwijningen. De zeven jongeren vormde 'The Losers Club' omdat niemand hen geloofde en samen probeerde de clown te vermoorden. Ter promotie van de film had de website Collider een interview met Bill Skarsgard over zijn rol als Pennywise en daar van kan je hier onder alvast een stukje lezen.

One of the most iconic things about Tim Curry's Pennywise is his voice. I was wondering if it's going to be your voice by itself or if they're going to add anything in or how you formed your voice and what it will sound like?

BILL SKARSGARD: I play around with a lot of different versions of what this thing might sound like. The voice had changed a lot from the first time I had auditioned. I explored different versions of it, what would resonate the most with the audience. It was really when we did the full make-up test and see what the character would actually look like...it's a very abstract way of preparing for something when you have no idea what he will look like. I didn't know what the makeup would look like, I had no idea what the prosthetics would look like. Then we started exploring different things and I saw different prototypes of what he might look like and I started working with that. My first test with the prosthetics and makeup was where I saw what the character would actually look like with me in it. That's something I needed to explore to [discover] what this thing would sound like.

Pennywise is an interesting character because he's a bit fluid, a projection of elements and fears from the children he torments. What was that like for your performance, to play everything that somebody can be afraid of? I imagine that would be freeing for you.

SKARSGARD: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I only have my own senses to go on so I wanted to make something that I would be scared of [laughs]. So an important thing for me in terms of preparing and creating the character was thinking "What are the things that I would find really unsettling?" And then explore that. Your own kind of fears and what you find disturbing and amplify that in terms of the performance. Essentially, what you'll end up seeing in the film is my own deepest fears embodied in this character [laughs].

Obviously, it's an extremely abstract character because the character is an entity taking the shape of a clown. I had to first figure out what the entity was and what the thing was that is taking the shape of the clown. The second step is to create the clown itself. I didn't want the clown to be completely separate from the entity, right? I wanted "it" to really shine through Pennywise as opposed to just Pennywise being the clown. So a lot of what the entity is I wanted to be in the background of who Pennywise is at all times. There's a line in the original book where it goes something like "the clown was its favorite form." It really enjoyed being the clown. He preferred to take the shape of the clown. Obviously, that opened ways of thinking. Why does he prefer being the clown? But also there is this sense of enjoyment. The entity that is "it" is enjoying being the clown. There were a lot of abstract ways to look at it. I tried to take all of those in consideration when I embodied the character. That was very exciting.