I watched Bozo The Clown and Ronald McDonald a little bit. ICON: Did you look to other famous clowns in history at all? There are those people in the real world who are that bad, but I kind of wanted to go through the character mentally and think, “What is the most monstrous and evil thing I can think of?” and those things kind of came to mind. In the first movie, the kids would cry and he would mock the kids crying and I thought that was like pretty much as evil as it gets, when you’re not only making a kid cry but you’re enjoying the fact that you’re making a kid cry. But what makes him evil and sinister is him taking pleasure out of feeding or pleasure of frightening and tormenting young children. It’s going out trying to eat humans because it’s hungry and that element is in Pennywise as well he’s hungry and he needs to feed. The shark in Jaws is a monster, but it’s an animal. I used to draw on animals as a reference point a lot, like Jaws. He’s a bully, he thrives off pain and fear and he’s mean. He’s kind of the embodiment of evil – everything that’s nasty in people, he is. He’s a creature, an entity, so we had to come up with what the rules were for the character or the creature and then kind of humanise it in a way for me to be able to relate to it. SKARSGÅRD: In a way, it’s even more abstract getting into the head of a madman because he’s not a man, he’s a thing. ICON: Unlike Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker – an unhinged man in clown makeup – you essentially had to get inside the head of an evil and maniacal thing. Here, he discusses his titular character and the vast differences between his native Sweden, where no one locked the doors, and Hollywood, where men in clown makeup is a normal sight on the main strip. Post his ICON cover shoot in TriBeCa, NYC, we give the younger Skarsgård some pennies for his thoughts. Their father, Stellan, is also a very famous actor in Sweden and starred as Professor Gerald Lambeau in Good Will Hunting. Both grew up in Stockholm in a family of 10, in which four of the eight children became actors. Skarsgård is related to 43-year-old Alexander Skarsgård, who is his older brother and is best known for his roles in True Blood and Big Little Lies. The actor has a slew of upcoming films, too, including thriller The Devil All the Time with fellow heartthrobs Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland, and drama Nine Days will see him return to fantastical fare alongside up-and-comer Zazie Beetz. While the wheedling and lethal villain is Skarsgård’s most notable role to date – and he’s brilliant in it, by the way – you might also recognise him from the 2017 mystery thriller Atomic Blonde (with Charlize Theron), the 2016 sci-fi film The Divergent Series: Allegiant (with Shailene Woodley) or Netflix’s supernatural drama Hemlock Grove. I don’t like to think too much about being associated with a murderous clown. “I think this is the first time anybody has said that. But when I tell him I can’t seem to un-see Pennywise when I look at him, he almost shudders with distaste. By his own admission, Pennywise was by far the most physically and mentally draining character Skarsgård has played. “I would scream and laugh hysterically before takes and reach a certain level of adrenaline to help me get into character for the scene,” he explains. But Skarsgård insists the actual process on the It set – of which he, the human, disappears underneath layers of prosthetics – took more work than what I’d just witnessed. It’s fascinating watching the actor come in and out of character it seems as simple as flicking a light switch on and off. “Even doing it out loud evokes a kind of unsettling feeling in myself,” Skarsgård says coming back to reality. You feel like he could either lunge at you or burst into a million pieces at any given moment. His voice is shaky, crackly, almost gasping for air. Suddenly, he begins cackling, his tall frame – which was seconds before slumped in his chair in the hotel room – rises and his eyes become so intense and fixated on something imaginary on the grey carpet between us. “I wanted the laugh to sound like someone who is having a panic attack and is almost about to cry,” the 29-year-old Swedish actor explains. NEW YORK CITY: Bill Skarsgård is talking me through how he mastered the sinister, bone-chilling laugh of Stephen King’s evil clown, Pennywise, in horror film It Chapter Two.
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