Pennywise The Clown Haunted Bill Skarsgård After Playing The Character in IT

Bill Skarsgård was amazing in the role of Pennywise The Clown in the big screen adaptation of Stephen King's IT. He brought the character to life in the most terrifying of ways and apparently after he was finished playing him, the character continued to haunt him! He couldn't get Pennywise out of his head! In an interview with EW, the actor said:

"I liken every character that I do to a relationship that you’re in. Pennywise and Bill go into this sort of relationship together, and I’m trying to figure out who he is and I have to devote so much time and effort to this other person – or thing, in this case – and that goes on for months."

He went on to say that living with this monstrous character was like being in an abusive relationship:

"It’s just like being in a very destructive relationship. People don’t really realize it until they’re out of it. All your friends go, ‘You need to dump this piece of sh—, he or she is destroying your life.’ And then once you’re out of it, you see, ‘I was so miserable.’ But I wouldn’t say I was miserable doing Pennywise because I had a lot of fun with it as well."

He went on to talk about how happy he was to let go of the character and be out of that relationship, but it still wouldn't leave him. Pennywise started popping up in his dreams:

"After we wrapped, I was in my childhood home in Sweden, sitting having coffee with my mom at our kitchen table, and realized, ‘Oh, holy sh—, I don’t have to deal with this relationship anymore!’ It was a very quick shift of just feeling better, like, ‘Oh my God, I’m relieved that I don’t have to deal with the darkness of the character.’ I likened it to an exorcism – him exiting my body and getting rid of the Pennywise toxins."

He then goes on to say:

"I was home, done with the movie, and I started having very strange and vivid Pennywise dreams. Every night, he came and visited.

"It was in the shape of either me dealing with him, sort of Pennywise as a separate entity of me, and then also me as Pennywise in circumstances that I didn’t appreciate. Like, I’m Pennywise and I’m really upset that I’m out in public and people are looking at me."

Sounds like Skarsgård had some unsettling experiences with trying to break free of Pennywise. But, he's still obviously grateful for the opportunity to play him.

"This was a process of letting go of the monster. It was amazing. It’s a daunting but exciting thing to sort of revisit him again."

The actor will definitely have the opportunity to revisit Pennywise again as he's going to have to rekindle that abusive relationship he had with the character when he comes back to shoot IT: Chapter 2.