Yahoo News Tilda Swinton was almost a gender-swapped Pennywise
Stephen King's IT is already shaping up to be the most anticipated horror film of the year, in large part due to Bill Skarsgård's casting as Pennywise the Clown looking like a pretty inspired choice from the trailers we've seen so far.
But, according to a new interview with the film's producer Barbara Muschietti, there were many, many people who auditioned for the role before it ultimately went to Bill.
In fact, at one point, they even considered Tilda Swinton for the role. Which, we can all agree, would have been incredible casting.
Related: IT 2017 – everything you need to know about the Stephen King movie
"We auditioned literally hundreds of potential Bob Grays or Pennywises and it was an amazing process," Barbara Muschietti said (via JoBlo). "We got to audition people that don't audition anymore and a huge gamut of talent; women, younger age, older age, we really went through the spectrum of actors."
And when one journalist jokingly suggested Tilda Swinton for the role, Barbara didn't shoot it down.
"She wasn't available," she said. "No, no I swear to god. She was not. We had a slot to shoot the movie and she wasn't available so she didn't even audition. But of course, we all thought about it."
As it was, the remake of Stephen King's terrifying novel ultimately cast Bill Skarsgård in the role – and considering he's already revealed he made children cry on set, his ability to terrify audiences shouldn't be questioned.
"Bill came in and blew our socks off," Barbara added. "Because he was doing his very own interpretation of Pennywise, very erudite... very, very familiar with the novel and with Pennywise in the novel, which for us was a huge help."
She continued: "For us, the Pennywise is the Pennywise in the book which is quite different. I think Bill went for that and he did an amazing, amazing performance and we gave him several tests. Again, because he's a shape shifter, we wanted to make sure that he could play in different grades, right? And he did. he's amazing.
"And what's even more amazing is that he kept the character very unpredictable, and that's what scares us the most, when you don't know what way he's going to go."
IT will be released to cinemas on September 8 in the US and the UK.
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