Bill Skarsgård is back in Derry, Maine, to terrorize some children in “It: Welcome to Derry,” the upcoming prequel series to the recent film adaptations of Stephen King’s “It” that promises to deliver not only another terrifying tale of a killer clown, but a true origin story for Skargård’s Pennywise the Clown.
This is great news for anyone who was scared in 2017 when Skarsgård first played Pennywise, as he played a huge role in that film’s success. It seems obvious that Skarsgård would reprise his role in the TV series as he is the only piece of connective tissue between the prequel series and the original story, but the original actor was very hesitant to return.
In the November 2025 issue of SFX Magazine, co-creator and executive producer Andy Muschietti said Skarsgård had a difficult time returning to Derry. “I think he was a little hesitant at first to play again because it’s something he’s done in the past,” Andy Muschietti said. “Also, at that point, when we started talking about the show as something real and tangible, he had played a lot of very dark characters and he was a little hesitant to come back to that.” He explained: “Because, obviously, for someone who takes his work and his art as seriously as he does, living in the heads of these characters for a long time is expensive.”
Muschietti continued: “So he was a little hesitant at first – and then something changed… I guess we started again, broaching the subject and discussing all the virtues of this new story, and he decided to do it.”
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It’s understandable that Skarsgård would have second thoughts about playing Pennywise again, given that he’s not only been given numerous villain roles in the years since “It,” but especially given that Skarsgård also recently played another huge movie monster in Count Orlok in “Nosferatu.”
According to Muschietti’s sister, Barbara, who co-created and produced the series, explained that they talked about adding a lot more exploration of Bob Gray to the “It” and later “Welcome to Derry” films. According to the producer, “We even considered making a third Bob Gray movie before he was taken over by It and became Pennywise.”
We don’t know much about it, other than that it is an interdimensional being that is billions of years old and likely visited other planets before arriving on Earth. While we don’t expect to learn much more about the entity in Welcome to Derry, it looks like we’ll learn more about the man she took over when she became Pennywise. We’ve heard about Bob Gray in It: Chapter Two, a human clown who bears a striking resemblance to Pennywise without makeup, but we don’t know much about his backstory, at least not yet.
As for Skarsgård, the actor has spoken in the past about how Pennywise changed his life, how invested he was in the role, and how much he scared his child co-stars. It’s understandable not to want to repeat yourself. Still, “it” wouldn’t be the same without Skarsgård, so it’s great news that he’s convinced to return after all.
