Bill Skarsgård says he’s filled his infant daughter’s room with Pennywise dolls. The actor, who plays killer clown who’s not really a clown created by author Stephen King in 2017's IT and the currently-playing IT Chapter Two, is the father to an 11-month old baby girl, and let’s just say he’s brought his work home with him. Speaking with Stephen Colbert, Bill Skarsgård revealed his… shall we say, interesting decoration choices for his daughter’s nursery, saying:
I’ve gotten a bunch of … fun merch and stuff throughout the years, so her little baby room is just filled with Pennywise teddy bears.
Well, that certainly is one approach to child rearing. In most nurseries, you’ll probably find cute and pleasant plush animals and teddy bears meant to soothe and comfort. I think it’s probably safe to say that in most homes, the nursery is the least frightening room in the house... unless, of course, that home happens to belong to Bill Skarsgård.
In Bill Skarsgård’s daughter’s nursery, you’ll find Pennywise teddy bears, which I didn’t even know was a thing that existed. Apparently, as he told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, Bill Skarsgård has received a bunch of IT and Pennywise merchandise over the years, including the aforementioned Pennywise teddy bears.
For reasons that are still unclear, he thought a good place to put this merch was in his daughter’s room. In the hierarchy of frightening places you don’t want to go, this puts that baby room right below the house on Neibolt Street and right above the Overlook Hotel.
So rather than his daughter, who is new to life and still discovering the world, looking around and seeing sweet, smiling stuffed animals, she’s seeing Pennywise. Pennywise! This is a nightmarish clown with sharp teeth whose literal m.o. is to murder children in gruesome fashion and feed off their fear! And he's in an infant's room!
I suppose you probably can’t portray an iconic evil as terrifying and disturbing as Pennywise effectively if you don’t at least have something a bit twisted about you, and this shows that Bill Skarsgård has that box thoroughly checked.
The way I see it, there are two, maybe three possible outcomes here. The first is that his daughter grows up to suffer from a debilitating case of coulrophobia. The second possibility is that Bill Skarsgård’s daughter grows up to be the most fearless person who has ever lived. I mean, when you spend your nascent years surrounded by the face of evil, a clown face no less, what’s left to be afraid of?
The third possibility is that Bill Skarsgård’s daughter follows in his footsteps, and instead of dreaming about becoming an astronaut or an actor, her life goal is to become a clown. Or maybe she’s too young and the Pennywise dolls have no effect at all. Still, it’s a gamble.
Now that he’s gone down this path, Bill Skarsgård should really see it through. Do kids still have clowns at their birthday parties when they’re little? When his daughter is a little bit older, he should really dress up in full Pennywise attire and makeup.
You can see Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise in IT Chapter Two, in theaters now. Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of all this fall’s biggest movies, and for the latest in funny ways to mess up your kids, stay tuned to CinemaBlend.
