The cast of IT: Welcome to Derry has revealed every Pennywise prank actor Bill Skarsgård played on the set of the horror prequel series. Skarsgård returns as Pennywise on the cast of IT: Welcome to Derry, once more portraying the murderous entity taking on the form of a killer clown. He’s set to come back later in the series.
While ScreenRant‘s Ash Crossan spoke with the IT: Welcome to Derry cast, a number of adult actors claimed that Skarsgård didn’t try to prank them when he was in his Pennywise outfit. They explained how the actor never pranked them or tried to get inside their heads, also emphasizing what it was like filming with him on set:
James Remar: No, he didn’t. There was no pranking or anything like that. Maybe it’s just a different time, but it was very focused and it was very rigorous. That costume of his probably weighs a hundred pounds. Let’s just say when I first meet him, he’s in a very challenging posture, and to maintain that, it was really heavy lifting, and I have just the world of respect for him and admiration. But when the camera was not rolling, he was very, very sweet.
Chris Chalk: My first reaction to seeing Bill, it’s less fun than you want. It’s an actor seeing an actor, so I’m seeing a dude in makeup and going, “That makeup is crazy. It’s so good. Oh my God, your costume’s amazing.” I care about the things that make all these things amazing, and his character’s so iconic that I want to see what made it up.
Stephen Rider:He has a big head. No, Bill’s good. He’s just a great dude. He was chill, but then he looks like Pennywise, so it was kind of weird. You’re talking to somebody who’s such a nice person and at the same time looks crazy. Like, I was saying that his hairline is crazy. It looks like he’s going bald. I don’t know. He needs to let that go. [Laughs]
ScreenRant: I love the mix like lore that I’m getting of some people being like, oh, he messed with me the whole time. And usually the kids and then other people being like, no, he is chill.
Stephen Rider: He’s chill. I’m a grown-a– man, you know what I’m saying? I don’t know. No, but in the moment, I mean, just talking, he ain’t scary, but when you put him on screen, it’s like sheesh. And then the special effects. It gets scary. Yeah, he’s scary.
ScreenRant: Obviously we know we’re building towards seeing Bill as Pennywise. I’m curious. I know he has a tendency, at least from what I’ve heard, to mess with the kids. Did you get spooked by him at all?
Kimberly Guerrero: It’s hard not to be spooked by him, but then he comes, Andy yells, “Cut,” or whoever it is and plays his trumpet. And then, Bill’s the kindest human being ever. I didn’t get to see him work a lot with the kids, but I’ve gotten to see those behind the scenes, even from the movies. That’s so great to kind of see. I think you have to have that kind of camaraderie off camera so that you can go to such depths of terror on camera.
ScreenRant: Is the trumpet a metaphor or did he take out an actual trumpet?
Kimberly Guerrero:So Andy Muschietti, we just live for this trumpet. It’s like a toy, a little French horn. But if it’s a really great take, you get “[Makes triumphant noise] ,” but if it’s eh, or it’s taking too long to set up, you’ll hear “[Makes lackluster sound] ”, so we’re all just kind of listening to the trumpet, and if you didn’t hear the trumpet, you’re just like, “I don’t know if that was even good or not.” You get really self-conscious. So yeah, the trumpet was everything. It got us through that long, long shoot, and those long, long hours.
However, actor Joshua Odjick and series co-showrunner Brad Caleb Kane explained how Skarsgård would pull pranks on the younger stars, trying to scare them while using his Pennywise costume. Kane mentioned how it also applied to his role in the movies, especially the first, where he’d try to terrify the child actors, reflected in his Welcome to Derry approach:
ScreenRant: So we know we’re building up to seeing Bill as Penny Pennywise. What was your reaction to seeing him in the full get up for the first time?
Joshua Odjick: Oh my gosh. I was looking at Bill and I’m like, “Yo, you’re so tall, and when you’re wearing your stilts, and wearing your whole wardrobe, you’re like seven-feet tall. I’m looking above you, and I feel like I’m shrinking.”
ScreenRant: I need to know, is it lore or not that Bill messes with the cast as Penny.
Brad Caleb Kane: Oh, he messes with them terribly. Oh my God. He gets in their heads. You have to scare them in real life to scare them on screen, because they’re used to seeing the cameras there, and the lights. It’s not as scary when there’s a lot of people around, when there’s a giant cast and crew, so Bill has to get in their heads and he does it beautifully. They’re always terrified of him.
ScreenRant: It’s funny, I was asking some of the adults and they’re like, “No,” and the kids are like, “Yes.”
Brad Caleb Kane: Oh yeah, absolutely. There’s actually a lot of footage from the movies online where Bill gets into the kids’ heads, but he did it here too. Yeah.
Speaking with some of the younger actors clarifying how Skarsgård would try to scare them in scenes they shared. Blake James and Arian Cartaya explained how he scared them during a scene in the sewers, one of the first they shared with him. Other actors talked about their reactions and how terrified they were of his pranks:
ScreenRant: Well obviously we’re watching the show. We know it’s leading up to us seeing Bill Skarsgård again as Pennywise, and I remember when the movies came out, the kids were like, “He was in costume all the time. It was freaky.” Blake, I’m going to start with you, because being scared of Pennywise, was there a moment where you were like, “Should I do this, because this is my biggest fear?” And then how was it seeing him around the set?
Blake James: Literally, yes. My mom and dad, they were like, “You got to chill out. This is a really big thing. I know you’re terrified.” But they had to not coerce me, or talk me into doing it, because I was going to do it anyway. But they’re like, “You just got to relax. Remember that it’s fake.”
Arian Cartaya: They gave you exposure therapy.
Blake James: Right, right. Oh yeah, they showed me videos of him getting fully made up, so I could know in my brain that it was fully fake, because man, it was just so full circle. But seeing him IRL, I felt like that as well, because it was surreal at that point, and it was a “face my fears” type thing.
ScreenRant: Did he mess with you at all?
Blake James: Oh my goodness. Literally when we were on the pole, it was this big pole and we were on the platform in the sewers, that was the first time that we met him. He jumped at me trying to scare me on some funny stuff, but it was not funny. That’s not funny at all. I didn’t find humor in it. I didn’t think it was funny. I didn’t giggle. It didn’t tickle my laughter box at all.
Arian Cartaya: For me, he messed around with all of us in that moment. We walked in the sewers and he just started laughing, like obnoxiously, and in Pennywise’s voice. It was just so creepy. I looked at Blake and we were just terrified. Terrified.
ScreenRant: I’m curious what your reactions were to seeing him. I think it was Sophia Lillis who was like, “I was not scared of him at all.”
Matilda Lawler: I wish I could be Sophia in that situation, but I was not immune to the terror that is Pennywise. I was absolutely so scared just seeing him in person. There’s nothing like it. My heart sunk or sank, something about the physical form is terrifying. He’s a very tall guy. The costume is scary, the makeup is scary, but something about the energy he brings to the character and just his magic powers as an actor are truly terrifying. So yeah, I was very scared.
Amanda Christine: No, I can definitely agree with that, Tilly. I was definitely scared too, because they definitely kept him top secret, and just seeing the IT movies with the kids, as well. We had screenings, and the movies are so iconic and also entering the Stephen King world in the books, as well. I’ve read halfway through. It’s so big and so much to read, but it was very fun, just endeavoring in that, and with them keeping him a secret also gave our true authentic reaction, and our scaredness. And he just plays Pennywise so well. He’s a really nice man outside of his character, but when in character and in costume, he has that demeanor and it’s really amazing. Really cool.
Clara Stack: Yeah, totally, I agree with both of you guys. I mean Bill endows Pennywise so incredibly, and I think he’s such a talented actor, so our fear and our reaction to seeing him in the show is genuine, and it’s natural, and it’s raw. We were all really scared with his hair and his makeup and his costume, and like you guys said, he’s so tall. It was kind of intimidating. But I think there was so much anticipation leading up to that moment of seeing him for the first time that we were honestly all just in awe and it was a really exciting and cool thing to see in person.
Skarsgård hasn’t appeared as Pennywise yet in the show, with IT: Welcome to Derry episode 1 focused on the hallucinatory scares he’s able to conjure. It also featured a number of deaths for characters that seemingly could have been important, albeit without the direct involvement of Its clown form. However, this will change in the episodes to come.
The actor pranking the children while dressed as Pennywise isn’t too surprising, considering he did the same thing while filming 2017’s It. Given how terrified the actors were of him, it seems reasonable this same level of horror translated to when they were actually filming their scenes. This means some memorable scares and reactions are likely on their way.
Since IT: Welcome to Derry is planned to last until season 3, there will no doubt be more opportunities for Skarsgård to scare young actors while in his Pennywise outfit. With seven more episodes left in the show, it remains to be seen how much these terrifying pranks translate to the scenes he shares with the children.
New episodes of IT: Welcome to Derry arrive Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.
- Release Date
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October 26, 2025
- Network
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HBO
- Directors
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Andy Muschietti
