10 Genius Suspense Tricks That Made Movies Great
7. The Young Cast Were Kept Away From Pennywise Actor Bill Skarsgård - It
Despite initial concerns about a new adaptation of Stephen King's It failing to live up to the bone-chilling brilliance of Tim Curry's performance as Pennywise in the 1990 TV movie, It: Chapter One received enormous praise for both its direction and Bill Skarsgård's mesmerisingly creepy performance in the role.
And though director Andy Muschietti certainly took full advantage of cutting-edge filmmaking parlour tricks to keep audiences on their toes, there's one altogether more subtle and practical technique he employed to heighten the dynamic between Pennywise and the children he torments, the Losers.
Muschietti made pains to keep his young cast members away from Skarsgård before shooting, even preventing them from seeing any images of the newly-designed Pennywise before encountering Skarsgård on set during filming.
Further still, the actor was kept separate from his young co-stars between shooting, and largely remained in-character between takes to further sell the terror.
Considering how brilliantly believable the interactions are between Pennywise and every single child character in the movie, it was certainly an effective strategy.
Of the experience, Skarsgård himself said, "This one kid started crying. He started to cry and the director yelled, 'Action!' And when they say 'action,' I am completely in character. So some of these kids got terrified and started to cry in the middle of the take, and then I realized, 'Holy s**t. What am I doing? What is this? This is horrible.'"