What’s scarier than a nighttime bike ride through a cemetery? How about a nighttime bike ride through a cemetery where the graves are alive with the sound of screaming ghosts? That setting serves as the climax to the third episode of It: Welcome to Derry, as the youthful sleuths investigating their hometown’s supernatural goings-on have to out-race a pursuing army of spectral beings brought back topside from six feed under courtesy of Pennywise. As an added danger, the ground beneath their bikes cracks and splits apart as they pedal furiously to safety.
Naturally, what everyone saw onscreen didn’t bear any resemblance to what the young actors experienced on set. Asked about how the sequence was shot, Arian S. Cartaya and Blake Cameron James — who play Rich and Will, respectively — describe a decided low-fi production. “Of course, the ground wasn’t cracking in front of us, so we just had to move our bikes back and forth,” Cameron tells Gold Derby. “It was kind of crazy; I wondered how they were going to make it look.”
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And later on, when Will is surprised by a creature in a crypt, the actual thing Cameron saw was far from demonic. “The thing that ran behind me was a guy in a full green suit,” he says. “That was interesting.”
Similarly, Cartaya’s close encounter with the ghost of Rich’s dead uncle was more comical than scary in the moment. “I remember it was just pillow foam with a blue light inside,” he says, laughing at the memory of what came flying at him on set. “I had to act like that was my uncle flying over my head! It was weird seeing that and not a ghost, but they did a really job on the episode of making it look realistic.”
Not for nothing, but the actors also deserve credit for making their characters’ abject fear look realistic. Cameron says that he relied on the power of imagination to overcome the on-set fakery. “If you think hard enough, and imagine hard enough, you can visualize something right in front of your that’s one of your biggest fears,” he says. “All you can do is pray that it comes out good on camera!”
Cartaya adds that being part of a dedicated ensemble is a big benefit as well. “Our chemistry played a big role in that scene,” he notes. “We helped each other feel emotional. It was almost like it was just the five us in a room feeling the vibes and getting into character.”
Speaking of feelings, Welcome to Derry‘s third episode reveals a key piece of backstory for two of the show’s adult characters, James Remar‘s Gen. Francis Shaw and Kimberly Guerrero‘s Rose, a prominent member of Derry’s local Indigenous community. The duo previously met as children 50 years prior to the show’s present, and they forged a bond that went beyond friendship into love. But when Francis left Derry, those memories slipped way — a side-effect of having Pennywise as the local boogeyman.
“Before I got here, I didn’t remember you at all,” Francis tells Rose. “You’re not the first,” she replies. “Derry’s funny that way; no matter how long you spend here, the further away you get, the more it all just seems to fade.”
Both Remar and Guerrero point out that their characters’ affection for each other hasn’t faded — even if it was temporarily forgotten. “It informs everything in terms of my encounters with Rose, because love can never die,” Remar says. “Childhood love is something you never forget. Maybe the callouses of the years overgrow your heart and the freshness of it, but there’s a certain vulnerability that Francis experiences with Rose every moment that he’s near her.”
As Remar notes, their first conversation together after five decades apart contains echoes of their younger selves. “She asks me, ‘What do you want?’ and I say, ‘What do you got for a nickel?’ It bridges time, and I got goosebumps instantly. That childhood relationship really does inform everything — but unfortunately it’s not quite enough for him to be a knight in shining armor.”
In fact, Francis is technically a thorn in Rose’s side, as his mission involves digging up portions of her tribe’s land, supposedly to improve water access for the town. But that land also houses sacred remains that the community specifically doesn’t want disturbed. “I know it might not mean much coming from a man in my position, but you can trust me,” Francis pleads. “I’d like to believe that,” Rose says, clearly not believing him despite their shared history.
“Rose only had one love and that was Francis,” Guerrero says of their now-revealed connection. “When he left, the hole that left in her heart made her realize, ‘I have a duty. … I have to be focused and can’t allow a hole like this to exist in my heart. So Rose never had another romantic interest in her life. Not that she wouldn’t want it, but her duty and her responsibility was so much greater.”
“She always carried Francis in her heart and thinks of him often,” the actress adds. “I think she’s been following his career and is probably willing him to bring the humanity she knows he has within him to that place of power. When he comes back to Derry, those rose-colored glasses are shattered quickly.”
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