{"id":2165684,"date":"2025-11-19T03:01:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T03:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2165684"},"modified":"2025-11-19T03:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T03:01:14","slug":"alabama-actor-blake-cameron-james-shines-in-critically-acclaimed-it-welcome-to-derry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/alabama-actor-blake-cameron-james-shines-in-critically-acclaimed-it-welcome-to-derry\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama actor Blake Cameron James shines in critically acclaimed \u2018IT: Welcome to Derry\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT<\/a>) \u2014 A 15-year-old boy who grew up in the Birmingham suburbs is receiving critical attention for his star-making turn as part of the ensemble cast being terrorized by one of the more iconic cinematic monsters of the last decade.<\/p>\n

Blake Cameron James has been acting ever since he was a student at Berry Middle School in Hoover, but it was not until this year that his profile considerably rose portraying Will Hanlon in the HBO series \u201cIT: Welcome to Derry,\u201d a spinoff of the horror series \u201cIT\u201d featuring the killer extraterrestrial clown, Pennywise.<\/p>\n

Premiering on Oct. 26, \u201cIT: Welcome to Derry\u201d quickly became one of the most watched debut TV shows on HBO Max, with 5.7 million people watching the season premiere.<\/p>\n

In the show, James plays Hanlon, a precocious student obsessed with science whose family moves to the fictional town of Derry in the 1960s, arriving in the midst of the prevailing fight for civil rights happening across the nation at the time. Hanlon quickly becomes part of the core group of children who start to recognize Pennywise\u2019s presence as he begins to prey upon them.<\/p>\n

Alabama Public Television to continue contract with PBS as it weighs its options <\/a><\/p>\n

Prior to \u201cIT: Welcome to Derry,\u201d James had appeared in commercials for brands like Kelloggs and AT&T before appearing in his first movie, \u201cThe Sound of Christmas,\u201d on BET in 2022. He has since appeared in the NBC series \u201cFound\u201d and \u201cWe Grown Now,\u201d which wont the Changemaker Award a the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023.<\/p>\n

James returned to Birmingham on Tuesday, where Mayor Randall Woodfin awarded him a proclamation honoring his achievement in both film and TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet this proclamation stand as a celebration of your accomplishments and a reminder of the bright future that lies ahead for you and for youth talent across this city,\u201d Woodfin said during the Birmingham City Council meeting Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Accepting the honor, James thanked Woodfin and the council for the proclamation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try my best to inspire each and everybody, not just kids, not just actors, but everybody, and I\u2019m a living testimony that if I can do it, anybody can with God,\u201d James said. \u201cThank you, guys, so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIT: Welcome to Derry\u201d airs Sunday nights on HBO.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/i><\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS 42. <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) \u2014 A 15-year-old boy who grew up in the Birmingham suburbs is receiving critical attention for his star-making turn as part of the ensemble cast being terrorized by one of the more iconic cinematic monsters of the last decade. Blake Cameron James has been acting ever since he was a student at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2165685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[415806,415805,399213,377985,415807],"class_list":["post-2165684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-berry-middle-school","tag-cameron-james","tag-town-of-derry","tag-welcome-to-derry","tag-will-hanlon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Alabama-actor-Blake-Cameron-James-shines-in-critically-acclaimed-\u2018IT.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2165684"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2165686,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165684\/revisions\/2165686"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2165685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2165684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2165684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2165684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}