—Creatives behind the project – including co-creators Andy and Barbara Muschietti – understood how incredibly vital it was to have him involved, and that meant telling a story that spoke to him as an ever-evolving artist. Jason Fuchs explained,
“The journey of Bill coming to this show was not a foregone conclusion. Bill obviously always wants to work with Andy and Barbara. Bill loves the world of this and loves the character, but he had, to his credit, felt like he had done the thing. He played this character, he delivered two iconic performances. And so it was not as simple as, 'Hey, we're doing a an IT prequel series, come play Pennywise.' It was, 'What is different about the character this time? What is there that I haven't been able to already achieve with this character?’
read @ the link or under the cut
As Jason Fuchs noted, it was a circumstance that bred a creative challenge for him, co-showrunner Brad Caleb Kane, the producers and the writer’s room. It was firmly understood that the project couldn’t properly exist if it didn’t have the canon’s most exciting character, and thus, there was a very specific goal in the work developing the series:
“It set a high bar for us as creators, as writers, executive producers. How do we generate something that feels worthy of Bill returning to this role? And that was the challenge from the start. And when we got the 'Yes' from Bill, it felt like a big accomplishment because without him, there was no Welcome To Derry. We had no illusions about that.”
Fortunately, the creatives had an ace up their sleeve: the identity of Bob Gray.
I asked Jason Fuchs what it was that turned the actor’s “maybe” into a “yes,” and he highlighted revelations about Bob Gray as a key part of the decision:
“I think what ultimately sold him was the elements that you're seeing now in episodes six, seven, and eight. I think he was excited about playing the IT manifestation of Pennywise. I think he was really, really excited about getting to play Bob Gray, the very human man, the real life – at least real life in-canon – clown who IT had encountered in 1908, as we see at the top of episode seven, and whose lives were forever both changed by that encounter.”
The show unleashes a bloody twist involving Madeleine Stowe's Ingrid Kersh, who has spent decades acting as a sort of familiar to Pennywise so that she can reunite with her lost dad, and we’ll see Skarsgård further explore that relationship in the two episodes set to debut in the next couple weeks. Fuchs teased,
“It was really an opportunity to play that other role, to explore what Bob Gray was like, what that relationship with his daughter was. I think, you know, that scene at the top of seven between Bob and Periwinkle/Ingrid inside his trailer with her act on him, all that's the stuff that I think he was really drawn to.”
But the Pennywise/Periwinkle relationship wasn’t the only one that intrigued the actor.
One of the series’ highlights has been the journey of Chris Chalk’s Dick Hallorann, a character who cameos in the book and has been shown to have a rocky relationship with the psychic curse/gift known as The Shining years before becoming the head cook at the Overlook Hotel. It’s a special aspect of the show – and notably, it’s another element that particularly intrigued Bill Skarsgård convinced him to sign on.
We first got a taste of their interesting dynamic in Episode 3 ("Now You See It") when the soldier is psychically hunting the evil entity from the skies, and the relationship has only escalated since then. Added Fuchs,
“The opportunity to portray Bob Gray was the number one thing that drew him back creatively; I think the other thing that was interesting to him was the sort of fresh dynamics that Pennywise, the IT manifestation of Pennywise, had in terms of characters in the show. We've never seen anything like Pennywise's encounters with Dick Hallorann. We've never experienced IT encountering another person with special abilities. That's a different dramatic tenor.” •
ok it may have started off kinda slow initially but by the end i REALLY enjoyed welcome to derry?? will definitely be tuning in for subsequent seasons 🙏
