Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday! I’ve been waiting patiently and I finally got to do a BTS post on 2017’s IT! Although criticized before its release, IT took the world completely by storm, skyrocketing the popularity of Pennywise and The Losers Club. I found some wonderful pictures and bit of trivia for you to enjoy!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures and gifs provided by google.com, facebook.com, and instagram.com)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• Out of all of the child actors, Jack Dylan Grazer (Eddie Kaspbrak) was the first one to do a scene with Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise. While Pennywise was in Grazer’s face drooling and yelling, Grazer was crying and gagging to the point where Skarsgård was genuinely concerned for him. Once the cameras stopped rolling, Skarsgård asked Grazer if he was ok. To his shock, Grazer no longer displayed hysteria and even complimented Skarsgård’s performance. Skarsgård was left confused and impressed by his professionalism.
• Since Sophia Lillis (Beverly Marsh) was the shortest out of the cast, she had to stand on top of a box in a few scenes.
• Some of the movie’s dialogue was improvised by the cast – especially some of the banter between Eddie and Richie (Finn Wolfhard).
• Pennywise’s drooling throughout the film was actually unintentional. The teeth prosthetics that Bill Skarsgård had to wear made him drool uncontrollably. The film’s director, Andy Muschietti felt the drooling added to Pennywise’s ravenous nature, so it was kept in.

• Although Jackson Robert Scott (Georgie) was the youngest cast member, he was surprised that he wasn’t as scared of Pennywise as he thought he would be. He said that Bill Skarsgård always joked around and Scott had a lot of fun during their scenes.
• Bill Skarsgård did a lot of research to prepare for the role of Pennywise. That includes watching The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, The Dark Knight, and The Silence Of The Lambs.
• When Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) is at the library, one of the pictures he looked at was a genuine Civil War photo of dead soldiers at Gettysburg. The Easter eggs around the corpses were obviously photoshopped.
• Andy Muschietti intentionally kept Bill Skarsgård separate from the child actors until they needed to shoot together. The children were warned by the production staff about how scary Skarsgård was going to be. The children brushed it off and didn’t believe he was going to be THAT scary. When it came time to shoot, the children ended up being genuinely terrified.

• Despite playing such a despicable character, Bill Skarsgård was said by various cast and crew members to be extremely polite and friendly in between shoots and he made sure that the child actors were all right and not completely traumatized.
• Andy Muschietti stated that there were two scenes that were the most difficult to shoot – the first scene with Georgie and Pennywise in the storm drain, and the flooded basement scene with Bill (Jaeden Martell) and Pennywise. These scenes needed a lot of water and crucial timing elements.
• Janie Bryant, the film’s costume designer, decided to base Pennywise’s costume on various eras throughout history. They include Medieval, Renaissance, Elizabethan, and Victorian. These combinations for the costume perfectly emphasizes Pennywise’s immortality.
• When Ben is at the library, he glances out the window and sees 4 of the Losers riding by on their bicycles. As Bill is riding by, he yells “Hiyo, Silver! Away!” Which is a nod to the original novel.

• Although a lot of CGI was used for the film, Bill Skarsgård was actually able to move his eyes in different directions. This skill of his upped Pennywise’s eeriness.
• When Richie is in the clown room, if you look to the left, you can spot a clown doll that looks like Tim Curry’s Pennywise from 1990’s IT.
• Wyatt Oleff (Stanley) and Jack Dylan Grazer both auditioned for the role of Bill Denbrough. Instead, they ended up getting the roles of Stanley and Eddie. Ironically, Jaeden Martell auditioned for Eddie but ended up getting Bill.
• After Will Poulter left the project, the role of Pennywise was narrowed down to Bill Skarsgård and Hugo Weaving. Skarsgård won the role due to his ability to be playful and childlike while also being creepy. Hugo unfortunately could only play creepy and he couldn’t achieve the playfulness that the role required.
• In preparation for the role, Bill Skarsgård worked with a contortionist.