Bill Skarsgard has spoken out about how his goal is to "traumatise kids" in taking on the iconic role of Pennywise the clown in his new film It.
The Swedish actor plays the terrifying child-killing clown in the big screen remake of Stephen King's classic horror tale, and told Interview magazine that "hopefully, there will be a lot of 10-year-olds who will be traumatized forever based on my performance."
Skarsgard, 26, explained that during filming, the director brought in a bunch of child extras for a scene and none of the kids had been told what to expect.
When he made his appearance in full make-up and costume, "some of them were really intrigued, but some couldn't look at me, and some were shaking."
Skarsgard went on to recount how "one kid started crying" during filming.
"Some of these kids got terrified and started to cry in the middle of the take, and then I realized, 'Holy s***. What am I doing? What is this? This is horrible'.
"It's a really weird thing to go, 'If I succeed at doing what I'm trying to do with this character, I'll traumatize kids.'"
The upcoming movie is the first of a two-part adaptation of the 1986 novel, which was turned into a mini-series in 1990, starring Tim Curry as the child-killing clown.
Newshub.