by Gill Pringle and Jessica Mansfield
A film as highly anticipated as its source material is beloved, the feature film adaptation of horror classic IT has had horror fans on the edges of their seats through every casting announcement, trailer and interview. A certain amount of pressure comes with taking a favourite and making it your own, and director Andres Muschietti and his producing sister Barbara are taking it in their stride.
From their smaller 2013 horror Mama to taking on a cultural icon, the Muschiettis have infused their touch of personal horror into IT, combining it with the sort of actors to keep the film intimate, but impactful.
Sitting down to chat with FilmInk, Andres and Barbara opened up about the process of finding their perfect cast, and how they impacted the making of the film.
“It was amazing, it was such a great group of kids, who were all very smart, and very talented,” Andres says, praising his young cast, who, despite a few slightly more experienced players like Jaeden Lieberher (Midnight Special) and Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things), are all mostly unknowns. “It wasn’t difficult to work with them. Working with children is difficult when you’re working with inexperienced actors, but this was not the case at all, and that’s why the process of casting was so intricate, because you see a lot of contenders for each character. And then what happens is there’s another stage where you think, ‘oh, this kid is perfect’, but then you throw him in the sandbox with the other ones, and that’s when the chemistry read happens, and you notice that it doesn’t really work. And then comes another one who wasn’t really perfect in the first place, but then you put him there, and it’s like, ‘oh, this is happening!’ So that’s why in this process we have a lot of stages: the first reading, then the call back, and then the chemistry read, where you put them together and realise the chemistry between them.
“And the great thing is that the kids had so much fun doing it, and I gave them the liberty to basically explore their characters, and come up with a lot of things. There’s a lot of improvisation. Especially two of them, the two funny characters, which are Richie (Wolfhard) and Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), happen to be extremely creative, and they would sort of team up, and every time I’d turn around they were scheming, and creating lines.”
“They would write scenes and bring them to us, like, ‘we should do this’,” Barbara chimes in. “Also, it was important that the kids gelled very quickly when we started doing the chemistry reads, but it was important for us that they were ready, and that they were real friends. So, we had them in Canada three weeks before, and had all these exercises for them to bond, and learn how to be kids in the ‘80s, which is different than being kids today; I mean, they all have iPhones, and it was funny to watch them, the first thing they would do when they came to set was all gives their iPhones to their mums. Because they’re all connected, and a couple of kids didn’t know how to ride bikes…”
“And that’s kids nowadays, they don’t climb trees or anything!” Andres laughs. “It was physical, when we climb down the well in one scene, one of them tells me, ‘oh, I have absolutely no upper body strength.’ I’m like, ‘what are you saying?’ So, yeah, it was funny the way everything was, but it came out in the end. Apart from a couple of bicycle accidents, from lack of experience. I won’t tell who.”
But perhaps even more than the children that we follow through this nightmare is the nightmare himself: Pennywise, the iconic clown who has haunted the dreams of young and old for decades. This time in the form of Swedish actor Bill Skarsgard. “Well, I wanted to convey madness, and the idea of unpredictability,” says Andres Muschietti.
“From a visual point of view, I wanted the childlike look, but balanced by this very twisted element, so you see there’s something childlike about him, but his look is weird. We talked for hours about how the character would be different, and we agreed that unpredictability was the main source of discomfort for the audience, because you never know what he was going to do next. The biggest reference that the audience has is Tim Curry. And he plays an evenly rowdy clown, but we wanted to take it to another level. And that’s a big responsibility for Bill; he created that character, and translated it into physical language. And to me, it’s not about his capability to do it, it’s about the lack of fear, of going out and exploring.
“I’m sure for him it might have been a great deal of pressure,” Andres continues. “Because it has been so iconic, not only from the book but especially from the series. Because there’s no one who’s like Tim Curry, especially for a generation who saw that movie as kids and had that image in their minds of that paradigmatic performance. But he didn’t care. And he found a lot of support in me, so my relationship with him was very tight, and we trusted each other. We were like kindred spirits because nobody else could figure out what Pennywise would do other than the two of us. So, we immediately bonded, and we supported each other at every step.”
“They’re getting married next month,” Barbara deadpans.
IT is in cinemas September 7, 2017
