Warning: This article contains spoilers from It: Welcome to Derry episode 5, “29 Neibolt Street.”
Pennywise is a stunt queen. The demon clown loves to make a dramatic entrance, and the same applies to HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry.
Bill Skarsgård finally makes his debut as Pennywise on the Stephen King-inspired prequel series, now more than halfway through the first season.
In the fifth installment, titled “29 Neibolt Street” (named for the address of the haunted Well House that serves as an entrance to It’s lair), little Matty Clements (Miles Ekhardt) stunned the new Loser’s Club when he showed up in their secret clubhouse. He apparently survived that attack by the shapeshifting It entity in the premiere episode. The blow that sent his pacifier flying out the car window happened off camera, after all.
But no! He’s very much dead. This Matty is It. The shape-shifting entity lures the kiddos into the sewers before revealing itself in the freakier form of Pennywise, officially welcoming Skarsgård back into the fold. Series creators Andy (director of the two It movies) and Barbara Muschietti (executive producer), and Jason Fuchs (co-showrunner) speak with Entertainment Weekly about savoring the fear by delaying the moment.
Brooke Palmer/HBO
Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise debuts on ‘It: Welcome to Derry’
“We decided that, in this season, Pennywise should be a little bit like the shark in Jaws,” Barbara says. “You really want to be strategic. In both movies, it was very important for us to keep the mystery and the fear for this character alive. We find that familiarity is the enemy of that. So it was important for us to delay the pleasure, or the terror, as much as we could.”
Andy calls it “a game of anticipation” to “get people in that state of, ‘I need to see the clown! Where is it?!’ That’s what we would’ve liked as an audience. It’s a bit of a slow burn.”
Fuchs, who synced with the Muschiettis first as a co-producer and script revisionist for 2019’s It Chapter Two, acknowledges the most exciting aspect of the entity is that it’s a shapeshifter. “In the movies, there’s only so much space to see those non-Pennywise manifestations of that creature,” he says. “Because you’re in TV…you get full episodes where you get to explore the other ways It is gonna torment these kids.”
It’s a game with the audience, as well. Fuchs points out that many viewers are now familiar with Skarsgård’s Pennywise from the two movies and were waiting for his eventual re-emergence on the series.
Brooke Palmer/HBO
Matilda Lawler, Arian S. Cartaya, Clara Stack, Blake Cameron James, and Amanda Christine on ‘It: Welcome to Derry’
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“We went back and forth,” Fuch says of the Pennywise planning. “We always knew this was not gonna be front and center in the first scene of the pilot in the way that It 1 opens with the introduction to Georgie and Pennywise. But a huge part of the creative process was, ‘When do we introduce this character in the context of this story?’ It really was a function, ultimately, of the story and the characters dictating it.”
Looking ahead to the rest of the season, Fuchs compliments the actor behind the demon clown getup, teasing how “his performance goes to some unexpected places.”
He says Skarsgård “has opportunities with this character that the story of the films did not present. Not only are you getting a really, hopefully, thrilling build-up to seeing Pennywise, you are also gonna see Bill doing things you’ve not seen him do in this character yet.”
With just three episodes left, new installments of It: Welcome to Derry drop every Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET/PT, on HBO and HBO Max.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
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