10 Iconic Horror Actors In Real Life

They really did wake up like this.

Mama Javier Botet
Universal

Horror monsters are some of the most creative and impressive expressions of art we have, even if they are usually exceptionally gross in their creation. Whether its pale entities from the void or unimaginable horrors from another dimension, creative teams come together to create both CGI and practical beasties to truly capture our imagination as these movies play out.

But what happens when you peel away the layers of pixels, liquid latex, and corn syrup? As long as you do it gently, there's almost always a real life human hiding away in the soft caramel core of the bad guys we've come to know and love on screen.

From campy idols in their own right like Robert Englund's Freddy or Nick Castle's Michael Myers, to those that remain mysteriously absent from the spotlight so as not to break the terrifying magic of their creations, there's a hearty mix of strange folk willing to get a little weird in the makeup chair for the sake of the craft.

So here is the equivalent of seeing these movie monsters in their birthday suits via the humans that live inside them. Or something less horrific sounding than that, anyway...

10. Pennywise In It - Bill Skarsgard

Mama Javier Botet
TBS/Warner Bros.

From the absolutely wild reception of It: Chapter One, most will have seen the eminently creepy clown Pennywise in one form or another across the marketing of Andy Muschietti's seminal horror movie - but whether you've caught the smiling son of Stellan Skarsgard hiding underneath depends on how closely you've been paying attention.

Objectively a pretty normal man considering he's not actually a murderous clown out to feast on terrified children, Bill Skarsgard plays the supernatural baddie with a disturbing sense of mania - drooling and laughing as much as he's breaking arms and eating flesh.

Appearing in the first It and slated for the second, it would be an easy guess to say he's a horror movie specialist considering his performance - but ol' Bill has a filmography full of roles in drama movies instead. Nice to know Pennywise is a lover underneath all the limb eating I guess.

 
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Horror film junkie, burrito connoisseur, and serial cat stroker. WhatCulture's least favourite ginger.