Bill Skarsgård: Hollywood’s Current (and Creepiest) “It” Boy in Summer’s Hottest Style
He isn’t a villain—he just plays one exceedingly well, especially as a cannibalistic clown in the It reboot. Here, Sweden’s next big acting export shows that when it comes to killer summer style, nothing gives you an edge like jet-black suits, jackets, and overcoats.
Not long after donning the nightmarish makeup of child-eating psycho clown Pennywise in last year's remake of It, Bill Skarsgård found himself in a nightmare of his own: fame. Leaving N.Y.C.’s Comic Con, he encountered a herd of autograph seekers—not fans, but professional sellers—outside his hotel. He signed a few and drove off. Hungry still, six of the signature hunters—four in a car, two on bikes—showed up at the next red light, and the next few after that, hounding him for autographs at each. “I think it’s easy for people to think of celebrity as something attractive. That aspect of it scares the **** out of me,” says the 27-year-old.
That wave of recognition is unlikely to wane anytime soon. He stars in Hulu’s Stephen King–inspired Castle Rock, out July 25. In a cast of notable names (André Holland, Melanie Lynskey, Sissy Spacek), he's the standout—especially impressive when you consider he barely has any lines, acting almost entirely through his expressive eyes and dull, awkward shuffle. He plays the creepy, emaciated boy found hidden deep in the bowels of the local jail (named "Shawshank") in Castle Rock, Maine, where the show is set—and the search for his identity drives the first season's plot. He'll out-act another cast in a small role in September’s feminist revenge fantasy Assassination Nation (think: Salem Witch Trials in the Internet Age). And he's headed back to the makeup chair for the It sequel. That’s good news for Skarsgård’s career and bad news for his reservations about modern celebrity. (“What’s it like for Rihanna? She can’t go down and buy a doughnut.”)
In conversation, Skarsgård comes off as extremely meditative—Zen almost—speaking in slow, thoughtful sentences, with a relaxed ease that is magnetic. After dressing him in summer's coolest outerwear, GQ talked to him about becoming famous, his extremely creepy stare, and why he stays off social media.
GQ: So has your life gotten any less nomadic? I know last time we chatted with you, we talked about how you haven't really had a home base for a while.
I'm still going to be nomadic, but Stockholm is where my family's from. It just feels like it makes sense to have a place there. I've essentially not had a home since I was maybe 20. I can't see myself as a very domesticated person, with a suburb house and stuff like that.
I'm almost 28—it's not as happy-go-lucky as it was in the early 20s, when you're flying by the seat of your pants and having a good time. You gotta confront some real stuff. I'm enjoying that part of it as well. It's not so much that I feel like I am more responsible—it's that I need to be more responsible. I pretty much feel like the same person I was three years ago, but now it's "Oh, ****, now I need to present myself in a different way or approach these new choices in a different way."
It's been a sort of breakout year. Has it felt that way to you?
Not really. There's been a level of attention—a shift, I've noticed. Autograph hunters, people waiting for you when you land at the airport. Which is like, "Oh, really? Is this gonna be what life is now?"
How do you prepare for a role like the one you have in Castle Rock—I guess not too different from Pennywise, either—that is so physical and not as much vocal?
There were a lot of psychological aspects that I was really intrigued by. What happens if you're contained or isolated in a space like he's been in? It's sort of a cage in a dark room, and this is someone that's been there for a very long time. That changes you drastically. So that played into the physicality of it. If you haven't used your muscles or your body in a really long time, things are going to be a little bit awkward. Then also socially he has maybe a hard time looking at someone in the eyes.
I did a lot of research on what solitary confinement does to you, how you become acclimated to being surrounded by people again after being by yourself for such a long time. It's really a horrific thing. It's definitely worth considering it as torture. We're just not meant to be in solitary confinement.
How difficult is it to sort of step in and out of that character, to acclimate back into the world of people after existing in that headspace?
I wanted him to be very malnourished. So, starting off the show, I sort of starved myself. I wanted a really gaunt look. You get into a weird headspace when you haven't eaten anything for a while—not drinking water even. That helped me initially get into the character. I think every character that I play has a certain sort of tone or an energy level to them. With this character, it's pretty low-energy and very contained, so you have to sort of be in that state of mind off the camera as well.
When you say you were starving yourself, what did your diet look like at the beginning of shooting?
A couple of months before we started shooting, I cut out all carbs and slowly lost weight. And then, three weeks before we started shooting, I got more and more intense on it. There's this thing called ketogenic diet. Essentially, you don't eat any carbs whatsoever. You eat protein and high fat. And once your body starts using fat as fuel, as opposed to carbs, you burn fat like crazy. And then I would do a couple of days of fasting, stuff like that. And he was so isolated, so I spent a lot of time just with myself, talking to myself. I lost almost 30 pounds. It really changes your face when you're gaunt like that. That really played well for the character, sort of high cheekbones and your eyes become even bigger. So I'm happy that I did it. But it wasn't always fun.
You’ve had quite a streak of dark characters. We need to get you in a rom-com.
[laughs] Yeah, I know. I saw some of the headlines for the trailers: “Skarsgård is creepy again!” People ask, what draws you to this type of material? It's not the genre itself, rather than it is the particular project that appealed to me. It's actually by happenstance that I just happened to be doing these type of dark, weird characters back to back. I just finished up sort of an indie [called Villains]—it's a dark movie, but it's like a dark comedy, and my character is really funny, and that was such a weird, refreshing thing.
One of the most impressive things in your performance is how expressive your eyes are. Have you ever turned your Pennywise stare, or the stare in this show, on anyone in real life?
[laughs] I think I’ve gotten that before—people have been like, “Oh, you have a creepy stare.” My energy personally is not as threatening, I don't think. Certainly not as creepy, I hope. I have a friend, his thing is like—he perfected his psycho look. So whenever there's an escalation or a confrontation out at a bar or whatever, he would just turn on his psycho look. And I was intrigued by that. Like, hmm, maybe that’s a good weapon. But it only works so far. Like, if they don't back down, you have to actually engage in a fight.
He isn’t a villain—he just plays one exceedingly well, especially as a cannibalistic clown in the It reboot. Here, Sweden’s next big acting export shows that when it comes to killer summer style, nothing gives you an edge like jet-black suits, jackets, and overcoats.
Not long after donning the nightmarish makeup of child-eating psycho clown Pennywise in last year's remake of It, Bill Skarsgård found himself in a nightmare of his own: fame. Leaving N.Y.C.’s Comic Con, he encountered a herd of autograph seekers—not fans, but professional sellers—outside his hotel. He signed a few and drove off. Hungry still, six of the signature hunters—four in a car, two on bikes—showed up at the next red light, and the next few after that, hounding him for autographs at each. “I think it’s easy for people to think of celebrity as something attractive. That aspect of it scares the **** out of me,” says the 27-year-old.
That wave of recognition is unlikely to wane anytime soon. He stars in Hulu’s Stephen King–inspired Castle Rock, out July 25. In a cast of notable names (André Holland, Melanie Lynskey, Sissy Spacek), he's the standout—especially impressive when you consider he barely has any lines, acting almost entirely through his expressive eyes and dull, awkward shuffle. He plays the creepy, emaciated boy found hidden deep in the bowels of the local jail (named "Shawshank") in Castle Rock, Maine, where the show is set—and the search for his identity drives the first season's plot. He'll out-act another cast in a small role in September’s feminist revenge fantasy Assassination Nation (think: Salem Witch Trials in the Internet Age). And he's headed back to the makeup chair for the It sequel. That’s good news for Skarsgård’s career and bad news for his reservations about modern celebrity. (“What’s it like for Rihanna? She can’t go down and buy a doughnut.”)
In conversation, Skarsgård comes off as extremely meditative—Zen almost—speaking in slow, thoughtful sentences, with a relaxed ease that is magnetic. After dressing him in summer's coolest outerwear, GQ talked to him about becoming famous, his extremely creepy stare, and why he stays off social media.
GQ: So has your life gotten any less nomadic? I know last time we chatted with you, we talked about how you haven't really had a home base for a while.
I'm still going to be nomadic, but Stockholm is where my family's from. It just feels like it makes sense to have a place there. I've essentially not had a home since I was maybe 20. I can't see myself as a very domesticated person, with a suburb house and stuff like that.
I'm almost 28—it's not as happy-go-lucky as it was in the early 20s, when you're flying by the seat of your pants and having a good time. You gotta confront some real stuff. I'm enjoying that part of it as well. It's not so much that I feel like I am more responsible—it's that I need to be more responsible. I pretty much feel like the same person I was three years ago, but now it's "Oh, ****, now I need to present myself in a different way or approach these new choices in a different way."
It's been a sort of breakout year. Has it felt that way to you?
Not really. There's been a level of attention—a shift, I've noticed. Autograph hunters, people waiting for you when you land at the airport. Which is like, "Oh, really? Is this gonna be what life is now?"
How do you prepare for a role like the one you have in Castle Rock—I guess not too different from Pennywise, either—that is so physical and not as much vocal?
There were a lot of psychological aspects that I was really intrigued by. What happens if you're contained or isolated in a space like he's been in? It's sort of a cage in a dark room, and this is someone that's been there for a very long time. That changes you drastically. So that played into the physicality of it. If you haven't used your muscles or your body in a really long time, things are going to be a little bit awkward. Then also socially he has maybe a hard time looking at someone in the eyes.
I did a lot of research on what solitary confinement does to you, how you become acclimated to being surrounded by people again after being by yourself for such a long time. It's really a horrific thing. It's definitely worth considering it as torture. We're just not meant to be in solitary confinement.
How difficult is it to sort of step in and out of that character, to acclimate back into the world of people after existing in that headspace?
I wanted him to be very malnourished. So, starting off the show, I sort of starved myself. I wanted a really gaunt look. You get into a weird headspace when you haven't eaten anything for a while—not drinking water even. That helped me initially get into the character. I think every character that I play has a certain sort of tone or an energy level to them. With this character, it's pretty low-energy and very contained, so you have to sort of be in that state of mind off the camera as well.
When you say you were starving yourself, what did your diet look like at the beginning of shooting?
A couple of months before we started shooting, I cut out all carbs and slowly lost weight. And then, three weeks before we started shooting, I got more and more intense on it. There's this thing called ketogenic diet. Essentially, you don't eat any carbs whatsoever. You eat protein and high fat. And once your body starts using fat as fuel, as opposed to carbs, you burn fat like crazy. And then I would do a couple of days of fasting, stuff like that. And he was so isolated, so I spent a lot of time just with myself, talking to myself. I lost almost 30 pounds. It really changes your face when you're gaunt like that. That really played well for the character, sort of high cheekbones and your eyes become even bigger. So I'm happy that I did it. But it wasn't always fun.
You’ve had quite a streak of dark characters. We need to get you in a rom-com.
[laughs] Yeah, I know. I saw some of the headlines for the trailers: “Skarsgård is creepy again!” People ask, what draws you to this type of material? It's not the genre itself, rather than it is the particular project that appealed to me. It's actually by happenstance that I just happened to be doing these type of dark, weird characters back to back. I just finished up sort of an indie [called Villains]—it's a dark movie, but it's like a dark comedy, and my character is really funny, and that was such a weird, refreshing thing.
One of the most impressive things in your performance is how expressive your eyes are. Have you ever turned your Pennywise stare, or the stare in this show, on anyone in real life?
[laughs] I think I’ve gotten that before—people have been like, “Oh, you have a creepy stare.” My energy personally is not as threatening, I don't think. Certainly not as creepy, I hope. I have a friend, his thing is like—he perfected his psycho look. So whenever there's an escalation or a confrontation out at a bar or whatever, he would just turn on his psycho look. And I was intrigued by that. Like, hmm, maybe that’s a good weapon. But it only works so far. Like, if they don't back down, you have to actually engage in a fight.
