IT Star Bill Skarsgard Will Play a Shawshank Prisoner in Stephen King's CASTLE ROCK
Bill Skarsgard, the actor who played Pennywise the Clown in IT, is also set to co-star in the Stephen King and J.J. Abrams' Hulu series Castle Rock.
The series is built around the universe that Stephen King has built in his books and will feature all kinds of elements and characters from his stories that fans are familiar with. Thanks to Flickering Myth, we now know who Skarsgard is playing in the film. He's going to play a prisoner in the Shawshank correctional facility.
"Instead of playing a killer clown as he did in IT, this time around Skarsgard portrays a prisoner at Shawshank, who is directly connected with André Holland’s Henry Deaver, a death-row attorney."
I know some fans thought that because the actor played Pennywise in IT that he might have something to do with that in the series, but that's not the case. I actually like the fact that he's going to be a prisoner in Shawshank! In a separate interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Skarsgard talked a little bit about the kind of character he plays, saying:
“The only thing I want to stress is that [Castle Rock is] a completely separate thing than Pennywise and IT. The world is brand new. It’s Stephen King’s universe…these are places we’ve been familiarized with through his work. But the show is an original story in that world. The character is a lot of fun. He’s — it’s a really weird one. [He’s] so different from Pennywise. I’m using a completely different tool set here for this one.”
Castle Rock is a 10-episode psychological-horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse. It "combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King’s best-loved works, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland. The fictional Maine town of Castle Rock has figured prominently in King’s literary career: Cujo, The Dark Half, IT and Needful Things, as well as the novella The Body and numerous short stories such as Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, which are either set there or contain references to Castle Rock. As a series, Castle Rock aims to explore various themes and worlds, uniting the entire King canon, while brushing up against some of his most iconic and beloved stories."
The series is being written by Manhattan creator Sam Shaw and Dusty Thomason. It also includes a cast of actors that includes Scott Glenn (Daredevil), Andre Holland (Moonlight), Sissy Spacek (Carrie), Melanie Lynskey, Jane Levy (Evil Dead), and Terry O-Quinn (Lost).
The series is set to be released on Hulu in 2018.