Bill Skarsgard's most famous role is no doubt Pennywise the Clown in the IT movies, but the Stephen King adaptation isn't his only brush with horror. It takes some actors many years of toiling in Hollywood before landing that big breakout role, but for Skarsgard, that opportunity came well before he even turned 30-years-old. As Pennywise, Skarsgard took a character many felt couldn't possibly be improved from Tim Curry's interpretation and managed to craft a worthy alternate version.
Skarsgard's Pennywise was a lot more serious than Curry's, and in many ways much less like an actual clown and more like a predatory animal. Some King fans have argued that Skarsgard's Pennywise is so outwardly creepy that no child would ever want to approach him, but really, the vast majority of horror movies require some suspension of disbelief. Plus, when it's time to get terrifying, Skarsgard's Pennywise is second to none, and has since become nightmare fuel for many.
However, Pennywise wasn't Skarsgard's first journey into horror, nor his last. The son of similarly acclaimed actor Stellan Skarsgard, Bill has all the makings of a horror genre mainstay, despite his still very young age. Here are his non-Pennywise roles in horror movies and TV shows.
IT: Bill Skargard's Horror Roles (That Aren't Pennywise)
Bill Skarsgard's first horror role came in 2013, as part of the Netflix original drama series Hemlock Grove. One of Netflix's first originals, Hemlock Grove would run for three seasons and 33 episodes total. Skarsgard played one of the principal roles on the show, Roman Godfrey, who like many characters on Hemlock Grove, wasn't entirely human. 2017 saw Skarsgard star in IT, then 2018 saw the Swedish actor play a supporting role in the darkly comedic horror/thriller indie Assassination Nation. Skarsgard plays Mark in the film, which centers on the small town of Salem, a place thrown into chaos after a hacker reveals shocking secrets about members of the community. Mark's girlfriend Lily (Odessa Young), is revealed to have been sleeping with her much older neighbor.
Also in 2018, Skarsgard got reacquainted with Stephen King material by playing a mysterious Shawshank prisoner dubbed The Kid in the first season of Hulu's anthology series Castle Rock. He also made guest appearances in season 2. Interestingly, Skarsgard's IT co-star Chosen Jacobs (young Mike Hanlon) also appeared on Castle Rock. In addition to IT Chapter Two, 2019 saw another horror role for Skarsgard, in the indie horror/comedy Villains. Skarsgard and It Follows' Maika Monroe play a pair of thieves who break into an isolated home, only to discover that the owners are criminals of a much more horrifying nature.