At 57 years old, Weaving would have been a much older Pennywise than the more boyish Skarsgård and Poulter, but it's fun to think about the steely menace he would've brought to the role. The other actor in the running was Hugo Weaving, the Australian thespian famous for playing Agent Smith in The Matrix and Elrond in the Lord of the Rings films. "It was a personal decision I respected, but I was eager and willing to find my own Pennywise and that’s what we did."įollowing Poulter's departure, there were also rumors of an older actor being cast in the role. "Will basically expressed a feeling that he had slowly disengaged from playing that character, that was so dark and terrifying," said Muschietti in an interview with Deadline. Though Fukunaga is still credited on the movie's screenplay, many of his ideas were abandoned in rewrites and the actor he cast in the role of Pennywise, Will Poulter of The Maze Runner and Detroit, also left the production. for years and eventually walked away from the production over creative differences. He also voiced the Deviant Kro in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Eternals (2021). He is best known for portraying Pennywise the Dancing Clown in the supernatural horror films It (2017) and It Chapter Two (2019), based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. He wasn't the first actor cast in the roleīefore director Andy Muschietti began working on this new version of IT, True Detective filmmaker Cary Fukunaga was developing the project for Warner Bros. Bill Istvan Gunther Skarsgard is a Swedish actor, producer, director, writer, voice actor, and model. (Oddly enough, he was also recently cast in Hulu's Castle Rock, which takes inspiration from King's Maine multiverse.) In some ways, he resembles many other hunky young actors, but if you look closer at his sharp cheekbones and penetrating eyes, you start to get a sense of why he was given such a daunting role. So, who did Muschietti find to follow in Curry's clown-shaped shoe footsteps? Bill Skarsgård, a 27-year-old Swedish actor who you might recognize from this year's Charlize Theron gun-fu thriller Atomic Blonde, the YA sequel The Divergent Series: Allegiant, or the ( very bad) Netflix horror series Hemlock Grove. It's a bit like taking on the role of the Joker after it's been played by Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger. For one thing, you have to compete with the cultural memory of Tim Curry's portrayal of the sewer-lurking clown in the 1990 ABC miniseries adaptation. It is a shot straight out of a Wes Craven film, and as the Rolex wearing clown turns Buddy into his polka-dot donning accomplice, he screams, “ Hey kids! It’s Happy Slappy time!” No, it’s not.Pennywise is one of literature's most memorable villains, a shape-shifter who reappears every 27 years to strike fear into the hearts of children, and playing him would be an obvious creative challenge for any actor. While the opening credits still roll, we first meet “Happy Slappy” (Michael Jeter) as he is shrouded in smoke and dust. He’s petrified of the clown boss' miserable demands and clearly needs to be saved. The only sound that matters is the whimpering of the golden retriever in the truck. The massive clown head atop a vintage pick-up truck hails the entrance of clowns into the Disney-channel filmography. It quickly becomes clear that Air Bud requires parental guidance. Make sure you’re seated for the :40 second mark when a seemingly innocent shot of an open country-road highway is suddenly disturbed by the rising head of a clown. The sweeping '90s score fills your (mono) speakers and the Disney logo imbues you with the familiar childhood warmth of your youth. Please go to your VHS collection (if you haven't tossed it) and pop in Air Bud, just for the first sixty seconds.
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