IT Star Sophia Lillis Admits Bill Skarsgård’s “Pennywise” Ruined Clowns for Her
Earlier this week, Sophia Lillis sat down for a candid interview on the latest episode of That Scene with Dan Patrick, one of IMDb’s newest podcasts.
The IT star talked about her role as Beverly Marsh and what it was like to work with legendary horror movie director Andy Muschietti. Lillis also shared details about her experience auditioning for the movie at age 13, having a “blood double”, and admits Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise ruined clowns for her!
Check out an excerpt below and check out the entire episode, HERE.
Dan Patrick: What did you think of clowns before you did the movie?
Sophia Lillis: I had no preference.
DP: What do you think about clowns now?
SL: Well, I can’t think about clowns and then not think about, you know, Pennywise cause that was a good section of my life. I mean, I was going into high school. Yeah, I don’t know if it ruined clowns for me. Maybe it did, I think that’s what happened. It kind of ruined clowns for me. And that’s why the scenes stood out to me… just everything your character is going through is ramped up and personified. And she has her first real encounter with Pennywise. So you’re doing your scene for the first time, and you’ve got blood coming out of the sink… like how do you approach that?! Then you’re thinking “okay, my dad can’t see this blood! I have to act like he should be seeing this blood! I have it all over me and I’ve got to be scared to death because there’s something in the sink!”
Acting’s hard, but when you’re there in that scene and you actually see the whole room covered in blood, you have the materials you need to be scared. So it wasn’t that hard being scared.
DP: How many takes did some of these scenes take you to film?
SL: With a scene where I had to walk backwards to the other side of the room l and act scared and everything… that was kind of a whole day thing. The scene where I get splattered with blood, that was only two takes and that was not me.
DP: Oh you had a stunt double?
SL: I had a stunt double… a blood double!
DP: What’s your favorite scene in the movie?
SL: I actually had a lot of fun doing that blood scene. That blood scene was fun because that was my first time I ever got drenched in blood. First of many, I didn’t know that at the time but the reason why I love acting so much is that I get a chance to do something that no one else has done before or experience things that people were like, Oh, I’ve never experienced that before. And that’s the main thing about acting is that you get to be someone else and get to do something completely out of the ordinary. And one of those things that were completely out of the ordinary is being drenched in blood. I don’t think that a lot of people could say I’ve done that, unless I’m really worried for them if that happened, unless they were in my situation.
Synopsis:
Seven young outcasts in Derry, Maine, are about to face their worst nightmare — an ancient, shape-shifting evil that emerges from the sewer every 27 years to prey on the town’s children. Banding together over the course of one horrifying summer, the friends must overcome their own personal fears to battle the murderous, bloodthirsty clown known as Pennywise.
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