a proper origin story for Skargård’s Pennywise the Clown.
This is excellent news for everyone who was scared out of their minds back in 2017 when Skarsgård first played Pennywise, as he was a big part of why that movie was so successful. It seems obvious that Skarsgård would reprise his role in the TV show as he is the only piece of connective tissue between the prequel series and the original story, but the actor originally was quite hesitant to return.
In the November 2025 issue of SFX Magazine, co-creator and executive-producer Andy Muschietti shared that Skarsgård struggled with returning to Derry. “I think he was a little hesitant at the beginning to play It again because he is something that he did in the past,” Andy Muschietti explained. “Also, at that point, when we started talking about the series as something that was real and tangible, he had played a lot of very dark characters, and he was a little hesitant to go into it again.” He explained, “Because, obviously, for someone who takes his work and his art so seriously as him, it takes a toll to live in the head of those characters for a long time.”
Muschietti continued, “So he was a little hesitant at the beginning — and then something changed … I guess that we started again, going into it and discussing all the virtues of this new story, and he decided to do it.”
