10 Actors Who Were Scared Of Other Actors

4. Bill Skarsgard "Freaked Out" The Child Stars (It)

IT Pennywise
Warner Bros

While 2017's It reboot was a heartwarming coming-of-age tale with an engaging supernatural edge, it wasn't particularly scary. Rather than making people look at the screen through the cracks in their fingers, Bill Skarsgard's performance as Pennywise was actually quite transfixing and fun to watch.

On the other hand though, the deranged clown did manage to instil a sense of terror in certain people: namely, the film's young cast.

While preparing for the film, Skarsgard was kept separate from the child actors, so that when they encountered him on camera, their reactions would be as genuine as possible. After all, the more scared they were, the more powerful a villain Pennywise would seem.

This was an interesting stunt to try, and based on some of director Andy Muschietti’s comments, it worked out perfectly. According to the filmmaker, the youngsters "f*cking freaked out" when they first saw Skarsgard in costume, with the actor's height and creepy demeanour making them all feel extremely uncomfortable.

The child actors were really great in the movie, and you can’t really blame them for being spooked by a tall, drooling lunatic with truly horrific fashion sense.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!