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There is, I think, in his works

an element of high tragedy,
and I am sure that tonight,

he will be willing
to
share with us

the movements and gestures
of his dance macabre.

I present to you,
Stephen King.

Thank you.

You come to experiences in your
own life that are frightening,

and you try to make sense
of them in what you write.

And I can remember
living in Colorado

and we had an old
American Motors car

that just simply vomited up
it
s transmission one day

in the middle of the road.

And a tow truck came along

and took it away
to wherever they take

transmissionless Matadors,

and they called around after
it had started to get dark

and said, "Your car's ready
if you want to come and get it."

And my wife said,
"Are you going to take a cab?"

And I said, "No, I'll walk."

And I walked and it got
darker and darker,

and this was really on
the edge of town, you know.

There's nothing there and
you could see the dealership,

but it was a ways away.

And the path went across
this bridge, you know,

a little arched
hu
mpback wooden bridge.

And I'm walking across it,

and I can hear my heels
clacking on the bridge

and I flashed to this story
wh
en I was a kid

about these goats that were
going across a bridge

and there's this troll
un
derneath and he said--

- "Who's that
trip-trapping on my bridge?"

And I thought,
"W
ouldn't it be a scream

if something just reached up now
an
d grabbed me,

- and pulled me down there,
and that was the last

anybody heard of
old Stevie King?"

So.

But the incident
stayed in my mind,

and over a period
of five years,

I would come back to that

and come back to that,
and little by little,

I began to evolve a story
until now it's developed into

a novel that's about
1,300 pages long.

It's called IT,

and it all came from that
one little moment of fear.

And I think that a moment
of
fear is worth having

if you can get something good
out of it.

This is Tim Reid,
Richard, in Virginia.

It's back.
I found a picture of Georgie.

IT's enduring power

may come from the chords
it strikes among all of us.

We're all human beings
and we were all children once.

It's amazing
to me all these years later

how people are still coming up
and talking about

that it has this lasting
effect and impact.

You never think
that something you've created

will, you know,
this will live on forever.

As an actor,

I didn't really
pay much attention

to the impact
that I was having.

I was just something
I was doing as a kid.

- This is battery acid,
you slime!

I've done shows
in Mexico or in Europe

where the crew
that I've worked with there,

they're like,
"Oh, my god. You did IT!"

I
think the story itself

is kind of timeless--

people going through issues

and having to come together
to overcome them.

We do it.

Oh yeah. We.

- You know,
it's a coming-of-age story.

It always
surprises me when people say,

"Oh, my god, I always
wa
nted to be you in IT.

I always wished I was Bev."

And I think,
"Oh, you poor thing.

What was your childhood like?"

It's talking
so
me pretty serious talk

about what it's like
for each of us to be a child.

- The fun.
Yeah! Yeah!

And the scary parts.

Yo
u know, most TV movies

disappear into oblivion.

I think the fact that IT
is consistently played on cable

has opened it to.
a much wider audience.

It
was one of the first

terrifying mini-series.

People were invested in it.
It became an event.

Something is coming.

And because it was made for TV,

it allowed a younger audience
to view it as well.

Little kids, who saw

IT on television,
it's still in their minds

as the scariest thing
they've ever seen.

Ah!

- That movie scared
the beep out of me, like,

I couldn't sleep,
I hate clowns, I hate spiders.

Like, couldn't even go
near a drain.

People tend
to gravitate towards things

that struck them as a kid.

And I think probably
a lot of the people who saw IT

as teenagers or younger,
it just, it burned themselves.

So as an adult,
it
becomes a fun memory,

then it takes on
this whole other cult level.

- It scared the hell
out of millions of people.

- One of the comments is--
is typically

"Tim Curry is the reason
why I'm terrified of clowns."

The portrayal
of Pennywise probably went from

"Yeah, we're gonna have
so
me clowns over

for little Johnny's
birthday party" to,

"Uh, probably not."

Well, a character
that manifests itself

in the shape of your fears
is terrifying

at any age, in any era.

And so, I think that's why
that concept is so indelible.

A
lot of people tell me

that IT poisoned
th
eir childhood

when they saw it on television.

And I would always think,

"You shouldn't have been
watching it."

I had written Carrie,

and that had put Steve King,
Br
ian de Palma,

the actors and me on the map

in a way that I became a go-to
fo
r horror adaptations.

I got a call one day.

.from my agent
in Los Angeles who said

he'd been approached
by a pair of producers

who'd set up a new
Stephen King project at ABC

as a novel for television
and was I interested in that?

The next day the doorbell rang,

Federal Express at the door,

and the guy is carrying
the most humongous

FedEx package I've ever seen.

I took this unwieldy,
bulky piece from him

and was about to close the door
and he said, "Hang on a minute."

And he went back
to the elevator

and came back with
these two giant containers

containing the typed manuscript
of IT in its earliest stages.

I sat down and read the opening
with young Stuttering Bill.

- Well, we have to
seal it first with paraffin.

And baby brother Georgie,

and what turns out to be
a horrible demise

at the hands of Pennywise.
in the sewer.

I went, "I'll do it."

We went in for a first meeting
wi
th the network

and the executive vice president
of
movies for television

and she looked at me
and she said,

"So tell me, what is IT?"

And I said, "Well it's
an inter-terrestrial beast--

"that has come down eons ago

and has the power to screw
with kids' minds.

- Beep-beep, Richie.

"And attack their worst fears."

And she looked at me
and she nodded, and she said,

"Yes, but what is IT?"

So, I went, "Okay."

And I answered another answer
and she asked me,

I don't know, five more times.

And I looked over
at the producers and went,

"I'm in hell."

I was coming back home
to New York,

and I'm sitting on the plane,

and I see a guy
with his back to me

reading what is clearly
the cover of my script.

It's Bob Iger,
who was the head of

all of the programming at ABC.

And he whipped
through night one,

went through his briefcase,
pulled out night two,

whipped through night two,
stood up, stretched,

sort of smiled,

and it said to me
IT had his support,

and I think he decided
in
that reading,

"Yeah, let's do it."

The producers had a brainstorm
and they picked up the phone

and they made an overture
toward George Romero.

He loved the book; he was
as
nuts for it as I was.

He saw the possibilities
of what IT could be.

I pitched it to the network
as a long novel for television.

I said, "I think it should be
eight and ideally ten hours."

We exchanged maybe five times
in the course of the process.

I would do what was needed,

which was called a bible
in television terms,

which was just
a really detailed outline.

And I'd send it to George.

He'd look at the outline,
an
d a week later

I would get a 45-page
typed version of mine

interspersed with his thoughts,
his notes, and his suggestions.

There was never a question
th
at he thought

it was going to be a gross-out,

lots of blood.

.kind of picture.

He understood
wh
at television offered

was the chance for
you to go right up to the line.

But his radar was out for
what would the network allow.

I think the dream
of what we had in mind

was absolutely amazing.

I think we were just about
20 years early in having it.

We would have been
Game of Thrones
.

That would have been the way
to do this piece of material

in its fullest possible way.

- The network started to get very
nervous.

Nobody had ever gone
where this piece had gone,

and they sort of went
from it being eight hours,

which became the official
running time bible,

to maybe it should be four,

at which point
George said, goodbye.

We were looking
fo
r a director.

We had an air date.

Stephen King's IT
starting tomorrow.

Tommy Lee Wallace came to mind.

Tommy was also a writer.

Part two needed the help and
I felt that a director-writer

would probably be
the person to do that.

And action!

I cut my teeth on synopsizing
manuscripts for agents

and developed a knack
for condensing novels

into a couple of pages
of synopsis,

So I just made an attempt
to do that with the book.

Larry Cohen wrote
this wonderful script,

and I'm referring to
night number one

because that's what got me
truly excited.

The trick in IT was

in putting on the King hat

and going, "Okay,
I've now read this 400 times,

I breathe it with
every pore of my body,

and I'm gonna pretend
I'm Stephen King

for as long as it takes for me
to get this done."

I did three-by-five cards
on the wall,

and I went, "Okay, we're missing
how you get from here to here.

It's not in what he wrote."

I retained a part of Steve's
back-and-forth juggling--

I brought this
old photo album from home.

- -of the two time periods.

I thought it had a lot
of emotional resonance.

That's
the only time I've ever seen

the absurdity of
a seven-act TV movie structure

actually work because of the
seven characters involved.

So
, for the first night,

the structural job
became really clear

and weirdly the limitation
became a tremendous asset.

Each act focused on

one of the characters

and told the story
of what happened in childhood

and the alarm
be
ing sounded for them.

- Hello?
Beverly,

it's Mike Hanlon.

- I was less enamored
with the second night

because it deviated so far away
from the novel itself.

I didn't know that
in the beginning

because I hadn't read the novel,
but I knew something was amiss.

It just didn't
deliver the goods.

The husband of Bevy--

No, I'm not married.

re-entered the picture

and became kind of
the villain of the piece.

- being more or less

animated by Pennywise.

In dramatic terms,

it did what it needed to do
to bring the movie to an end,

but it had little to do
with the book

and I felt like it
kind of gypped the viewer.

It was a much more prosaic
TV-style climax.

- I was candid with Larry
about that.

And by this point, the impetus
is moving to Vancouver

and Larry couldn't come
to Vancouver to work with me

to bring the second night
up to the first.

By this time,
I'd been working on the project

for about two-and-a-half,
three years.

Not quite as long as
it took Steve to write it

but the runner-up prize.

We were about to start Carrie

with the Royal Shakespeare
Co
mpany over in England

and I was owing a draft
on something else, and I went,

"I think this is my cue to say,
'Go with God. I'm done.'"

So, the
jo
b fell to the best guy

I could find for free, me.

And so,
I did the rewrite myself.

And in this case,
we simply were up against

a production schedule
that was hurtling toward us

and was not going to be
pushed back.

So I just went back to the book
ag
ain and again

until I could find a way
to bring the adult story around

to something
resembling the book.

It really is a deep challenge
to condense a novel

that rich, that deep,
that dense,

into just a few hours
of television.

I used Mike
as a narrative device.

- I'm sure by now
yo
u all remember

what was going on
in Derry 30 years ago.

There was a rash of killings,
maimings, disappearances.

Because you
can save a lot of frames of film

if somebody's summing up
the story.

- Henry Bowers
co
nfessed to everything,

and the killing stopped.

I thought
it
was poignant for him

and helped his character
actually.

But it was going so fast
that at night in the hotel

I would just--

as fast as I could go.

I don't think Night Two
is the masterpiece

that Night One is,

because I do respect
Larry Cohen's script

and didn't feel all that great

about changing it
so
drastically.

- Tommy Lee
did what he needed to do

given what the circumstances
were.

This reminds you
very much of your childhood,

this neighborhood?

Yes, it does.

It does. Same dirt road.

Same old Grange Hall
at
the end of the road.

That's you.

That's me
when I sold my first story.

I look a little bit surprised
about the whole thing.

- Stephen King
is such great drama and mystery.

And for as much as his books are
about horrific things,

they are mostly about
deeply human

psychological thought processes,

so you get a lot of
deep character study.

Well,
I'd read most of the books

because he's a master of
narrative.

He tells a whacking good story.

- People would say you ought to
write about what you know.

I grew up in a small town.
We
had no running water.

I went to a one-room school

with all the grades
together and.

somebody had to go up
to a house and bring back water.

And to me, the whole existence

was not pastoral
or beautiful or anything.

It was just boring.

I wanted to be in outer space.

I wanted to fight monsters
in the swamps of the Amazon.

So those were the things
that I wrote about.

And later I found a way to.

My interest in what was
st
range and-- and alien

and the places where I lived
and where I grew up.

Most of his works are

difficult to turn into films.

Because if you try to.

visually show an audience
what this.

incredibly talented writer

that uses the English language
in order to have the reader

conjure up their worst fears,
it doesn't always work.

The movie has to capture

some of the spirit of
the writer's heart and-and mind.

And if it doesn't,
generally speaking,

what the reader went to the book
and found and loved,

the movie audience won't.

- It's hard to capture
all the little nuances

that he puts in his books.

His stuff
was such an influence

on so many filmmakers as well,
as far as storytelling.

Steve's got
a
very particular genius

in creating villains.

They become iconic
and come into a level

of the public's consciousness
and the viewer's conscious

that's forever.

- You were
on
e of the first people

to have the idea that a clown

could be a scary figure.

Did you find clowns scary
when you were a kid?

- Well, you know, as a kid
going to the circus,

there would be like,
12 full-grown people

that would all pile out
of a little tiny car.

Their faces were dead white.

Their mouths were red as though
th
ey were full of blood.

They're all screaming.
Their eyes are huge.

What's not to like, you know?

The circus is still
the greatest show on earth,

and to have a circus,
yo
u have to have clowns.

Well, there's
a long tradition of clowns.

When I was a kid and used to go
to pantomimes in England,

they used to have a guy
whose name I think

was Charlie Cairoli,
who wore the classic

kind of pointed hat
and was rather a gentleman.

He wasn't threatening at all.

Growing up,
my brother was into clowns

and ran away
and joined the circus.

If you've ever been
backstage at a circus,

it changes your perceptions
of clowns.

- Often there's sort of mayhem
involved with being a clown.

- They're usually, both
silly and scary or playful,

which can all be frightening
to a kid.

I went to the circus in 1974,

when I was a little kid,
an
d I have a photo of me

where the clown's putting
his arm around me,

and I'm only about this tall.

And I have this
paralyzed look like, you know,

I'm not happy.

I think
it's almost archetypal

in the sense that clowns,

like Pagliacci, the opera--

there's always something
behind that smile.

- I think prima facie,
clowns are fucking scary.

Even when you're enjoying them,

there's something in there
in the grotesquery of it all,

and it's really in the eyes,
I
think.

You know, you can have
this very funny thing.

Even if the mouth
isn't overtly scary,

which sometimes
clown mouths are,

but the minute
the eyes get hard,

the minute the eyes aren't,
you know--

You know, aren't that,
and they go.

Wow!

- I would go to McDonald's
when I was a little kid.

I would not go hang out with
the Ronald McDonald cutout.

The fry guy!

- There's something
weird about it.

I didn't think he was going to
grow teeth and eat my face.

Not every single clown you see

makes you want to
instantly turn around

and run away in horror.

I
think adults and kids

understand clowns
very differently.

I
can't go to circuses.

I can't go somewhere
where there's clowns,

even a picture of it.

What's going to
happen if you look at it?

It is a phobia,
and it is called coulrophobia.

The majority of people that are
afraid of clowns are adults.

I think for kids,

clowns are great fun.

There's just not any menace
or danger at all.

And Steve's particular spin
was to take something

that's much loved and familiar

and ratchet it up
as far as it could possibly go.

Somebody who's got problems

and fears and phobias,
they go to a psychiatrist,

and it costs maybe
150 dollars an hour.

And they don't even get
a full hour,

they get 50 minutes.

I do what people pay me.

There's lots of things

that feed into what
King was doing

with creating a clown
as the main antagonist.

At the time, John Wayne Gacy
had just happened,

so we're dealing with people
be
ing afraid of clowns,

and the guy next door
is a threat.

- At one point,
I saw a painting of Pennywise

that Gacy had done.

A dark landscape,

a portrait of Elvis,

and a scene with seven dwarfs.

But this is the work
of John Wayne Gacy,

an evil man who buried
more than 25 of his victims

in the crawl space
of his own house.

Arts Factory owner
showed us five pieces,

including this
Pennywise the Clown

from Stephen King's IT.

- I was like, should
I be flattered or offended?

I don't know
how I feel about this.

The scary clown
is that realization

deep within the child that
they can't express, that no,

something's not quite
right in the world, you know.

Like, I've seen the homeless guy
in the street.

Any spare change, mister?

- Or, you know, I've seen
really sick people,

or I myself have experienced
some kind of abuse

or discrimination, right?

But you're not supposed
to talk about it as a child.

You feel like you have to
smile and be happy.

That's what
th
e evil clown is about.

It's about the fact
that there's something rotten.

at the heart of society.

This whole town is
IT in some way. All of them.

- And as a kid, you're
not allowed to express it.

Pennywise
is really important

because the '50s were
considered safe and sweet

and nostalgic and fun.

And at the heart of it,
they're not.

So, the clown works
on that metaphorical level

that it's saying this is
what the decade was like.

On the outside, it's one thing.

Inside, it's something
completely different.

The mythology
of clowns being scary

has exponentially grown
ov
er the last 20 years.

- Fuck you!

I do feel as though this book

and this movie
had some influence on that.

I was about five or six

and I was in
a video rental store,

and then all of a sudden,
there's this face

just staring back at me,
and I just froze.

Like, if you see a spider,
you freeze with fear,

and I just froze.

People,
I think, perceptions change

because that's what
they're being sold.

They're being sold
that clowns are scary.

Sightings
of a mysterious clown

have been creeping out

some people in Staten Island.

- Media sites have been abuzz
with stories

of a mysterious
and creepy clown.

- And you know,
I'm sure that Pennywise

and John Wayne Gacy
didn't do the best job

in creating a positive image
of clowns.

And I'm sure it wasn't
Tim Curry's goal

to have people hate clowns
for the rest of their lives.

But I think it is
kind of a hallmark

of a good performance.

He had a tremendous impact on

growing people's fears
about clowns.

I can't say
that I ever saw clowns

as being threatening,

although I loved
being threatening.

That's it! Let go!

Be afraid!

It was a lot of fun.

There's enough room

in our understanding
of clowns

to have some of them
be not so scary,

to be sweet and nice,

and maybe some of them
just downright awesome.

Beep-beep.

Push this closer
to
the monster, please.

A little farther, Tim.
Fi
nd the light.

All right, here we go.
Ye
ah. Thank you.

And clear, please.

And action!

I believe
ca
sting has been

as much a contributing factor

to the success
of my version of IT

as any other factor at all.

It was beautifully cast. Period.

- They brought me the script
and they said,

"You want to do it?"
And I'm like, "Well, yeah."

This is an amazing piece.

We knew what we had
when we were working on it.

Pennywise was
such a brilliant character.

- We were looking
for television leads

to promote the picture
in our marketing campaign.

Victoria turned her list in,

and we began going after
the network-approved actors.

We had approval
of Harvey Fierstein

to star as Pennywise.
And we were saying,

"We need to continue to
look on the list here.

We don't know whether
the network will approve him."

I think they'd
mentioned it was going to be

either Roddy McDowell
or Malcolm McDowell.

- And they explored Alice Cooper
at one juncture.

So, who else have we got?

- I do remember
that we had brought up

Rocky Horror Show and said,
"L
ook at that."

- I had to buy the Rocky Horror
Picture Show album,

I had to buy the books,
I had to buy the scripts.

You're a very expensive date.

I know.

- Just the freedom
of the character,

the intensity
that he gave to it,

was so wonderful
and you could see

that this would
translate brilliantly

into a horror character.

How 'bout that?!

We were focused on Tim Curry.

Me?

I think
he's one of the best actors

that's ever come out of England,

and I don't think
he gets his due.

Was there
any time in your life

when you said,
"I
want to be an actor"?

Yes, I did, actually.

What is there in it

which appeals to you most?

- A sort of voluntary
schizophrenia, really.

It's a high-risk profession
and I enjoy risks.

He's created
so many iconic characters

that we've known through time,

and they've been
so uniquely different.

You said that
being British in Hollywood means

that you're usually stuck
playing a butler or a villain,

but that's okay with you.

I think that they probably feel

that we bring some kind of
style to the--the job

that--that we might not

necessarily have acquired
in the States.

Yeah, but you know
what I think it is about you?

I think it's that
you're very seductive

and, you know, I thought
if you were the devil,

I would pay to go to hell.

His Darkness character has

stood out from any other
devil I've ever seen.

Looking at his body
of work, I feel like,

there's nothing
that he can't do.

Is he available?

I will kill you all.

Is he interested?

Can we make a deal?

I'll kill you all.

- Will the network
be okay with it?

You are priceless!

Of course, everyone was.

I didn't audition
or even do a meeting.

They just asked
me
if I wanted to do it,

and I said, yes, I did.

Tim Curry
just had all those elements

that he would be fearless
in the role.

Kiss me, fat boy!

- He brought
more to the character

than what was
written on the page.

So, he was approved
at the network

and the rest is history.

You all taste so much better

when you're afraid,
really afraid!

Tim brings
his considerable intellect

when he does a part.

I sometimes
as
k myself that question

after I've done a take.

One of the great advantages
is
that you can whisper.

I mean, that you can do things
that are very small

which you couldn't do
on--on a stage

and then that's what
I'm discovering about that.

We didn't
talk at great length

intellectually about it
because it was clear to me

that he had the correct
instincts.

It's got to be true,

whatever you're doing,
and the camera picks that up

much more cruelly than
anything else.

Tim Curry
managed to capture the humor

that a clown can bring.

- And then
just managed to switch it.

And be this
ma
gnificent evil villain

that would kill you and eat you.

Like that.

I'll kill you all!

- In a funny way,
it's a very simple performance.

- Take your pick,
B-
B-B-Billy boy!

Whenever you
see fearlessness in a colleague,

it's always an inspiration.

Some wise
person in the movie business

said for directors the key is--

90 percent of it is
casting the right actor

and then
getting out of their way.

Tim was a director's dream.

A little further, Tim.

Find the light, uh,
somewhere in there.

There's not much there.

Okay.
There! There's some.

I
liked Tommy Lee a lot.

He was very direct,
which was nice.

- Tommy Lee Wallace was a
brilliantly minimalist director.

Remember in-in the script,

where I talked about
,

and I hope we still have it
standing by.

He basically trusts his casting

and just gives the actors
their head and lets them do

what they do well.

He was very clear
about what he wanted.

Now, his hands come up first,

and then pulls himself up.
There. That's it.

Which was great.
I really liked that.

Okay,
your chin's a little low.

Ah, that's perfect.

- Because then it
becomes a pleasure to deliver.

- I'll drive you crazy
and I'll kill you all!

I'm every nightmare
yo
u've ever had.

I am your worst dream come true.

I'm everything
yo
u were ever afraid of.

He did give me a lot of room.

Pennywise was
a very dangerous invention.

And I use dangerous
in the best sense of the word.

- What I mean by it is that
they're pitched at a level

that totally can go very wrong
very quickly,

with the wrong casting,

with the wrong direction,

with any number of
fill-in-the-blank

mistake possibilities.

Tim was the genius choice
that radiated perfection

everywhere every time
he appeared.

You guys don't have to do this.

My dad says you have to know
when to take a stand.

Let's get out of here!

Yeah, let's go.

We live in dangerous
times, boys and girls.

I want you to be.careful.

Not just any car.
it
's a bicycle.

They always
made the best noise.

Come on, Laurie Anne.

It's gonna storm.

No one even thought of

going to Vancouver
in those days.

I wish this summer
wo
uld never end.

It's the best summer
of my whole life.

Your hair is winter fire,

January embers.
My heart burns there too.

This was poor town.

Yeah, still is.

It's all I need.

The wave of
fi
lmmaking in Vancouver

started in 1984.

I think the dollar dropped.

And so more shows started to go,

"Oh, you can get a bigger bang
for your buck in Vancouver,

and we're only
two hours away from LA."

Hey!

I'm back!

When the time came
for us to start producing,

I had Vancouver implanted in
my head as a place to go.

You think we're
gonna let you have

all the fun there, Billy boy?

- Having such a big production
over such a long period of time

created a huge buzz.

- In '89,
it was really busy in town.

Okay, here we go.
And roll, please.

- The studio that we used
was called The Bridges

and it was an abandoned shipyard
building that was converted.

I was working
at Thomas Special Effects,

which is a local special effects
ho
use here in Vancouver,

owned by John Thomas.

He had a great stable
of
crew people.

He had all these people
th
at he nurtured

and had what we call
"real-world" abilities--

welders, woodworkers, people
that work with fiberglass.

They are all the veterans
of the film industry

that Vancouver has created.

It put a lot of people to work.

It used a lot of locations

and it also put Vancouver
on the map.

Cut!
- Cut! Very nice.

What are you guys anyway?

We're sort of a club.

I can remember
going to the movies

and they used to have
Saturday matinees.

We'd all line up,
usually with our money

tied in a handkerchief
or something

so we wouldn't lose it,

and then we'd get
in
the theater,

and everybody would turn
their popcorn boxes into bugles

and then the giant grasshoppers
would come on

and destroy Chicago and London.

I wrote about some of this stuff
in a book called IT.

It's funny, I think a lot of us

have only the haziest memories
of our childhood.

- I don't remember much of it
at all, what we did.

We can access
some of the good memories,

and maybe we can access
some of the really bad memories

if a bully beat us up
on the school yard.

You're dead!

- But what I discovered
in writing IT was that

the more I thought
about my childhood,

the more
those memories came back.

There's symbolism everywhere

in the writing
that Stephen King created

to express the fears
of all children

that go through feeling
like a loser.

Feeling like an outsider.

You're
only here because

Mom says it's
our Christian duty.

- That's what
the Losers Club was about

and that's the bond that kept
these people together,

because they didn't find
sanity, peace,

or even really a loving family
except with each other.

Their chosen family.

We're seven now.

Lucky seven.

The gold
of the book were the kids.

That's where I responded;

I think it's where
th
e audience responded.

That horror was
the icing on the cake,

and very particular icing
in this case.

We had
a casting director in Canada

by the name of Sid Kozak,
and Mark and I

did the U.S. casting.

We were looking for three

major things with the kids.

One was a sense of humor.

Richie Tozier's my name.

One was they always
had to do a scene

that was painful and heartfelt.

- You killed
my brother George, you bastard.

- And then
they also had to be scared.

A lot of times,
when you see them right off,

you go, "They're not prepared
emotionally to handle this yet."

You're looking for an old soul.

You're looking for people
that have a pain

and kids that could
tr
uly, truly feel depth,

- truly feel the fear.

.w
ithout projecting it,

truly feel the camaraderie
of the humor of the group.

And when
yo
u're coming in alone,

that's hard for those kids.

All these different characters

that seem to come
from different backgrounds

all had the same thing
in common--

they're misfits,
they're outcasts,

they have an undesirable
home life.

What you got there?

They don't feel
like they're worth anything.

It's the Losers Club.

- And yet,
when they all work together,

they are literally unstoppable.

- I think the six of us
could put you in the hospital.

Seven.

- We went to the producers
to do a mix and match.

We wanted to have three
in each roll for the first one

and see how the kids
wo
rked together.

- It was
challenging having kids--

Eddie, which way is Derry?

- and adults--

That way.

- and you had to cast
both in the like.

Like
Stand by Me
,

the challenge was
in finding adults

that would both physically
match up with them.

This was a case
where I think the network

was completely right
in
its choices.

You really needed to believe

Seth Green grows up
to be Harry.

I feel like
every one of those parts,

there's a poignancy involved,
because those kids,

I believed that they grew up
to be those people.

At that time,
wh
at was really popular

was to find
the iconic TV actors

that would be ensemble players.

The ideas kept coming.

Richard Thomas for Bill.

Those were quick decisions
in an office.

John Ritter, Harry Anderson,

Annette O'Toole,
Richard Masur,

Dennis Christopher,
Tim Reid..

Stephen King's IT.

I
mean, those were like

a gold mine of actors.

We were getting TV's best

and then piled
Tim Curry on top of that.

Well, we knew we had something.

- They all
came together wonderfully.

That's lightning in a bottle.

You just don't always get that.

The adult actors wanted to

spend time with the kids,

wanted to get to know them.

We had a Lucky Seven camp

for the express purpose

of having the children
an
d the adults interact

and work out business.

Bill Denbrough goes like this.

It's no accident.

We brought the group that
wasn't being shot right then

in for three days
simply to have them develop

little tricks of that sort
so that it really would feel

a veracity to the whole thing.

When you see that first part

and those kids who then later
become those adults,

the end result was,
I
think, very successful

because the characters
were more in synch.

- I think
that paid just untold dividends.

It
was really important

for Tommy Lee Wallace

that all the kids
were bonded in reality

so that that would come across
on screen.

- I mean,
are we men or are we mice?

We're mice!

- You feel this trust
that he has for you.

And as much as he knows
ab
out all the characters

and how all the puzzle pieces
fit together,

he knew how much
our characters meant to us.

To the Losers Club!

- All right.
To the Losers Club!

The first kid that was cast

was Jonathan Brandis,

because he just was rich.

And when you look at it,
oh, my god.

He can reach points of pain
and depth, very simply,

deeply, very quickly.

- It's some kind of monster.
and it's right here in Derry.

I had a crush
on Jonathan Brandis for sure.

I thought he was pretty cute.

My heart burns there too.

- I remember he was on the cover
of every, like,

Teen Beat magazine.

- Brought an awful lot
of gravity to that role--

George.

- that somehow was a good
emotional match

for his adult counterpart,
Ri
chard Thomas.

George.

I remember
Jo
nathan because we met,

we talked, you know, to get
a feeling of the same person,

but that felt like it was
an essential meeting to have.

I don't know if he had to
put a mole on his cheek. He did!

They made him put a mole
on his cheek.

Oh, the poor kid.
That's terrible.

That's right,
he had to wear a mole.

oh god.

Th
ey both had something

in their personalities

that's serious,
that takes the cruel world

and the hurts and the angers
an
d the angst of it all

and takes it personally and
wants to do something about it.

I'm going back in.

This time I'm gonna kill It.

- There's a sense of nobleness
about both of those people

and Jonathan had that
as a child.

Now, listen.

you guys don't have to do this.

And he was the natural

leader of the kid actors, too.

He didn't do it
by making a lot of noise.

He just did it
by being who he was.

I felt
very close to that character

when I read it.

When a script comes to you
or a play text and you read it,

you can feel the proximity
of the character,

the affinity that you have,
and you can feel the distance.

But with Bill, I just thought,
"Oh, no, I know how this feels.

I know who this guy is."

It was the
Bill-Georgie-Pennywise sequence

with the observation
of what siblings were,

but emotionally I believed in
the truth of those brothers

loud and clear,
and I thought the scene

was one of Steve's best.

You made it for me?

Can I go sail it?

- I remember
the scene assembling the boat

with Jonathan Brandis,

and giving him the kiss
and how awkward that was.

Yuck!

But he was a great guy.

I was completely stunned.

I had no idea
that he had been suffering

any kind of depression
or any other issues.

All I knew is he was working.

I think he had just finished
a movie with Bruce Willis,

Hart's War.

He had an incredible run
on
Sea Quest
.

Hello.

- He'd learned
the craft of directing..

- What you do is sit at it
and watch '70s television--

Yeah.
- o
n a channel and--

just to find out all the ways

you shouldn't direct
a television show.

- Um, it's just
they're shot kind of cheesy

and I just kind of want to learn
how to do somethingifferent

with television.

He
was doing everything

a resourceful actor could do.

I think he had everything
in front of him

and I was excited
to see him moving forward.

I was blown away
because he's my age.

That was probably
one of the first times

I ever even considered
my own mortality.

Swear to me.

swear to me that
if It isn't dead,

we'll all come back.

The kids moved me enormously,

and I think about
the scene at the end

when they come together
having won the battle

but not the war and hold hands
and swear that they'll return.

Swear.

- When you have a project
that is such a good story

and has such a good lead actor,

it's really hard to
screw it up. musically.

Finding a focus
was the first thing.

What's the music going to do?

It could have been the most
horrific alien ever

to visit our planet
in the form of a clown.

- .but to me, it was
kids in jeopardy.

Hands squeeze.

I focused on the kids.

to a large extent that's
because Stephen King and I

are about the same age,

so when he writes about kids,
that's my childhood.

In the '50s when we would play
outside and build dams

and all of that stuff, we would
score our activities ourselves.

If it was an action scene,

"Nah nah nah nah nah."

When they jump on Silver
to get away--

- Go!
- Hi-ho Silver, away!

The reference
of hi-ho Silver means

that through their minds

badump badump badump
badump badump badump.

Now I couldn't do
th
e William Tell

and get away with it
with a straight face,

but that was the focus.

We would put
the pictures of the adults

up first and as they were cast,

we put the kids that were
possible matches for them.

And very early on Sid sent us
a tape and photos of Emily,

who was the young
Annette O'Toole--

Daddy, breakfast is ready.

- -and she set a very high bar.

We kept looking for that role,
but she was really an old soul

that just matched
what we were looking for.

- The character of Bev
was like my mom's childhood.

She grew up in the '50s,
her name was Bev, she was poor.

I just felt like
I was playing her.

She said, "Those are the exact
clothes that I used to wear,"

so it was this
really unique opportunity

to express my mother's story.

- Emily was a singularly
professional young actress.

She was very mature
for her years.

She understood
that the relationship

between her film
father and herself

was not the relationship
between her and me

and that makes life
a whole lot easier.

- For me, Beverly Marsh
was the 1950s female child

who was oppressed
based on her gender.

Bev wants to help.

I hope it's okay.
I mean, she's a girl.

- .and very stringent ideals
of how women should behave.

Let me see that.

- Bev's father is
extremely critical

of her developing sexuality.

Poetry from some boy?

- That's a big theme
in the novel.

The domestic and sexual violence
against Bev is a major theme.

It's not as much I don't think
in the mini-series,

but it's there a little bit.

My agent
suggested me for Al Marsh

and the casting director said,
"O
h, no.

Frank's too much of a nice guy
to play that character. No."

They did three rounds
of auditions.

Finally, on the fourth round,

the casting director
let me go in and audition.

Casting against type when

you're in that kind of project,

that's part of our
being creative

and the agents and managers
submitting them and saying,

"Hey, what about this?"

In the room, the director says,

"Would you shave your beard?"

I said, "You hire me,
my beard's gone."

Daddy, please!

- He felt so guilty
having to smack me

and be this intimidating,
domineering, abusive father.

- Let me alone,
you just let me alone!

Come here!

- And sometimes
you went a little over

the limits
in terms of discipline.

- He always apologized
at the end of the day

but while he was in the moment--

- You get right the
hell back here, Bevvy!

- -he was just really scary,

so I didn't have to do
a lot of acting.

The blood coming out
of the sink--

- -stayed with me
because for a while

I was like afraid to take
showers,

and there's that sewage,
subterranean element to IT.

- Good afternoon, gentlemen.
I'm Beverly Marsh.

Annette O'Toole I had worked

with several times,

and I loved Annette
and the person that she was

and the actress that she was.

There wasn't
a lot that I needed to do

to become the young Annette.

They said that our mannerisms
were similar.

Well, I was
thinking, being Saturday now,

you could come down with me
to
the Barrens.

- My grandfather
was an actor.

He was in Gone with the Wind.

I think they were having
a
40th anniversary party

and there was a lady there
who thought I was kind of

precocious and cute,

and put me to work
almost right away.

I was four.

The Jonathan Ritter match,

little guy, Brandon,

unbelievable from the moment
he came in.

Ten out of ten.

I remember
getting a callback

and it being an audition
that I really wanted to get.

And there were probably
20 kids in the room.

- There was a lot
of competition in that role.

I looked around
an
d I remember noticing

there weren't any other Bens.

So, I asked the AD,
"Where are the other Bens?"

They said,
"It's pretty much just you.

We're looking at
a kid in Vancouver

and I think one in Texas,
but I think it's gonna be you."

Nobody does that, right?

Nobody tells you
during the casting process

that it's probably gonna be you.

I had never been asked to read
anything like this before.

They wouldn't
treat us like this

if Daddy were still alive.

Be
ing a fat kid,

you literally don't have
a whole lot of roles that,

I don't want to say
have any meaning,

but--but certainly don't have
a lot of depth.

A lot of times, they're just
about food jokes or fat jokes.

What a porker.

They're crazy
of
f-the-cuff one-liners.

They're the crazy characters.

Obviously,
body image is a real key issue

that a lot of kids
are dealing with,

probably more than
you even imagine.

- I'd never been given anything
to read that wasn't that.

There was a lot of gravitas
with this.

I remember, "Wow, I'm gonna have
to be a real actor now."

There's a moment where
I pull some Sugar Daddies

out of my pocket and eat them
because I'm nervous.

It was explained to me
that there was some importance

behind that because
I protested a little bit.

I was like, "Ah, really?

Do we have to do this
right now?

And--and the way
Tommy articulated it,

it made perfect sense,
so I went along with the ride.

I was willing to do those things

because there was so much
more meat with the character

and so many situations

that I'd never been
ab
le to portray before.

I did those things willingly,

knowing that there would be
a huge payoff in the end.

Knowing
that you were going to be

in the same movie with
John Ritter and Harry Anderson

and all these other actors
wh
o I'd already

seen on TV at this young age
was a phenomenal experience.

I was a huge fan
of
John Ritter.

He was a massive
influence of mine.

Not just as the kind of
actor that he was

but the kind of comedian
that he was.

The type of physical comedian
that he was and

how deeply sincere he was
in all of his performances

regardless of the character
that he was playing.

How important is being a star?

Uh, it's not important.

Being thought of as a--
as a good actor is.

You have one
of the most gifted comedians

of his generation too,

so obviously it's going
to be crazy, right?

- He was always
full of mischief.

Always up to something.

Here, boy!

That's it.
Oh, I can't stand it.

I can't stand it.

I had my two kids
come up and visit.

They were big fans
of John Ritter

because they watched
Three's Company
,

so when I told them
I
was working with him,

my stature went way up.

They have never forgotten it.

Cut!

- We were all stirring up
our own fear.

That's what we did at work
all day internally,

to be ready to jump
into these scenes,

which were kind of hard
and kind of dark.

John would always lift us
up with humor.

He's always got humor
in his back pocket and

I know it served us
really well.

Here's a comic actor asked

to play the dramatic role,

and I never doubted
for a minute that he could.

Mike?

Yeah, buddy. Listen,
It. It's come back.

- He walked in and made
everyone around him better,

like a good team player
in a sport,

just by his professionalism,
his sense of preparedness,

and his ability to
get down to business

while still cracking wise
and having fun.

- John had a presence
about himself

that interestingly related
more to young people.

- Hang tough, champ.
You're gonna make it.

- He was adored
by young people.

He really appreciated

that we were just kids and

sets should be
an enjoyable place to be.

Maybe he was
a
little bit responsible

for all the boys' antics.

I wouldn't be surprised.

He was, you know,

really interested in meeting me.

I was him. He was--he was
one of my idols.

But there was always a running
joke that of all the kids,

I looked the least like my
counterpart,

and he was quick to sort of
notice that as well.

So he pulled me aside and said,

"Hey, let's spend
some time together

and think of some things
that we can do

that will sort of
bridge that gap."

There's that reveal
where I'm standing there

in the classroom
and then we cut to him

and he's biting his nail
as
well.

That was what we came up with.

We tossed the
football around on set with him

because he was open to coming in
and playing with the kids.

And I still
remember him saying, you know,

when he was,
"Okay, okay, I've had enough,"

and we're like "Oh come on,
just a couple more,"

he was like,
"When I had no hair on my balls,

I could throw the ball
for hours."

Everybody had a Game Boy,

so I was playing my Game Boy.
I was playing Tetris,

and he walked up to me
and he said,

"What is this?"
I said, "It's Tetris."

"Tetris?"
I said, "Yeah, Tetris.

It's a game.
Ev
erybody knows Tetris.

You live under a rock?"

He grabs it out of my hand
and he starts playing.

And--and from then on
I realized,

"Okay, well, he's cool.

He's not just John Ritter
the actor.

He's John Ritter, my peer.

And maybe if I'm lucky,
my buddy."

I
got a call to come in

and speak with the
directors for this mini-series.

I had not read the book,

so of course I rushed out and
spent all night

and part of the day,
because Stephen King writes

so many long books.

I took on the role
fo
r two reasons.

One, it was a nice gig,

and it was going to be
for a long time up in Vancouver.

The other reason was working
with some of these actors

that I had admired,
worked with one or two of them,

so that was really
the--the two main reasons.

I brought this whole
photo album from home.

Marlon was really wonderful

and he did this little monologue
at the beginning of the audition

that was simple, deep, and
had a lot of thought in it.

- There was
an
Easter egg hunt here,

but the ironworks exploded
and all these people got killed.

The lines
th
at they had me reading

were pretty much the lines from
the actual classroom scene.

That role was
so
hard to audition for.

It has very little material
in the group scenes

and takes a lot of
negative language.

When you're casting
an
d you're being a bully

to all these kids. wow,
it takes a lot out of the day.

Thank god,
he looked physically

a lot like what I looked like
at his age.

You know, you always wonder,
"Oh my god,

he'll get somebody here
who looks nothing like me."

You know, like they bring
a white guy to play me.

No, it didn't happen!

Mike represents to
me a few souls that I have met

in my journey in life,

and they're people who,
for whatever reason,

something happened in their
childhood or young adulthood

that has affected them
for the rest of their life.

I knew of
a few people like him,

and some ended
in very tragic situations,

some fate just never seemed
to bless them

with a good hand, you know?

It's like always
throwing snake eyes.

And I think Mike
was that kind of guy.

I think that all of them
had a sense of that,

that they were on their way,

they were young people
full of life, full of wonder,

and all of a sudden, this
horrible thing happened to them

for the rest of their life.

They have been hiding
in psychological fear of life.

And to me, Mike is
th
e center spoke

that brought it
all back together.

Lucky seven.

That's how in the series

when they got a phone call
from him,

didn't take a whole lot
of explanation.

- Yeah?
This is Mike Hanlon, Bill.

- Immediately
they know what this is about.

Bill, It's back.

- Now they have to decide,
do they want to participate.

On my
ho
nor I will do my best

to do my duty to God
and my country .

Stephen King's big secret

is about the wonders and
horrors of childhood--

Stanley boy.

- -and how you get through it

and how important
friends are

and bonding with special people,
li
ke-minded youngsters.

Those bonds can be
as strong as steel

and his story is a demonstration
of just how strong,

when they made a promise
to each other

to return if It came back.

I swear it.

They were
very solemn about it

and they meant it.

And you see what happens when
they have to keep that promise,

especially in the case of Stan,

who couldn't face
keeping the promise.

It was that horrible for him,
an
d so he didn't bother

to go back. but he did
something else instead.

I think I'll take a bath.

Stan was
most affected by Pennywise

and I suspect that
even as an adult,

that memory never was
very far from his mind.

Stan saw It face to face.

Not the clown,

but he saw
what was behind the clown.

- When he got the call
from Mike Hanlon--

Who did you say?

Mike Hanlon.

to come back to Derry,

it brought back
so much trauma to him

that he just couldn't
go on anymore.

He couldn't even fathom the idea
of possibly facing It again.

Goodbye.

Bye, Stan.

- And he chose
an easy way out.

- For somebody like me who
grew up in the '70s,

It's a Who's Who.

Richard Masur, who I'd literally
grown up watching.

He was the classic
ch
aracter actor.

So him coming in, even though
it was just for a day

and he had a small part in IT,
I was like, "Wow."

I got a call
from Jim Green

and he told me they were doing
this miniseries.

- We talked about what we could
do to tie the character together

between the adult and the child.

He asked what I thought
we should do.

And for whatever reason,

I immediately thought
of this thing where I was gonna

grab my ear, and he liked it.

I remember just thinking,
"I have no idea what I'm doing

and this well-respected actor
just said he likes my idea."

I was like, you know,
over the moon about it.

My favorite
part of the time I was there

was when we set up
th
at beauty shot

of all of us on the staircase.

I thought that was
a wonderful shot.

It was a lot of people
who were really well known

at that time
all standing up there.

To me,
Stan Uris was an outsider

like the rest
of the Losers Club.

He was very by the book

in that he didn't deviate
fr
om his school lessons

or what his parents
may have told him,

but he was able to connect
with these kids--

Lucky seven, Stanny.

I said I was in.

- and then explore
a different part of himself.

One of the last casts

was a little kid named Adam.

Some guy killed George.

Pulled one of his arms
right off,

just like a wing off a fly.

- He was smaller
than most of the other kids

and they were worried about the
size match-up and everything.

My character Eddie Kaspbrak,

I would say that he was kind of
the runt of the bunch--

- How you doin',
Ed
die spaghetti?

- which was
already a fairly runty bunch.

He was the quiet, shy kid

who was also the youngest
of the bunch,

which I believe was true
in reality.

I think I was the only one
who wasn't a teenager yet.

I was still 12 and I think
everyone else was 13 or above.

I went in
and met with the producers

and we talked with Tommy Lee

and I guess
they
got the feeling from

the work of mine
that they had seen

that I was right to play Eddie.

And of course, after that,
I devoured the book

and was wondering
ho
w in the hell

they were going to fit
all of this beautiful writing

and all of these amazing
background stories

of these characters into
two nights of television.

On the last mix and match,

Seth Green wasn't going
to be able to make it.

And Victoria was like,
"Oh, my god,

we have to get him here."

Everybody was confirmed
except Seth,

and we were a little nervous
about that.

So I actually drove to his house
and picked him up.

It
was exciting to know

that I was getting close to it.

When you audition,
you mostly don't get jobs.

You--you don't get 90 percent
of the things you audition for,

so to even get a callback
and be in the chemistry

part of it,
I was very excited.

Seth was
full of piss and vinegar.

A great kid, clever and
cracking jokes all the time.

I was a very curious kid,

and then I was also interested
in filmmaking very young.

Seth was the most precocious,

but he had this intelligence
about him and he would say,

"I'm going to be a filmmaker
one day."

Part of what they
liked about me

was me doing voices.

- Your voices
all sound the same, Richie.

Thanks a bunch, professor.

or impressions.

- By George, Martha,
it's the river Nile.

- .or being
fast-witted or funny.

- Well, hey.
Larry, Curly, and Mo.

- Beep-beep, Richie.

- That was the thing
that got me that part.

Richie, to me,
always seemed both fearless

and also terrified.

- Tozier!

- He was willing
to keep going forward

even though he was scared.

Richie!

- .but he was the first guy
to make a joke about it.

Oh, come on.

An
d then Harry Anderson,

whom I didn't know,
we had an instant rapport.

Harry and I chatted a lot.

And I'd watched him
on Cheers and Night Court.

I'd seen him do stand-up
and magic.

This is one you probably know.

- So, I was into that guy and
excited to get to play him.

Di
recting kids,

in general, is challenging.

And he takes a powder and jumps.
Boom!

Jumps right over you and
suddenly you guys see him go,

and that'll be the end
of this first piece.

And directing seven,
sometimes ten,

12 kids all in one scene--

.

Don't go way over there.

- -is hugely challenging

because they have
so much energy.

Whoa!

- I think Seth was more or
less the ringleader.

We got in a lot of trouble.

Let's get out of here!

- We were kids.
both on set and off.

But I think
us getting in trouble together

also made us a lot closer.

Yeah.

- We also had our little spats,
like we got tired of each other.

Jonathan Brandis and I
often took out our stresses

by bagging on each other
pretty intensely, actually.

But at the end of the day,
we were all pretty close.

- If it were filmed now with
that same group of kids,

there would be a lot of them
who had diagnoses.

Maybe ADHD,
oppositional defiance.

Some of them just
would not shut up.

We were
dropping water balloons off

of our balcony onto
people's convertibles.

I think one time we managed
to do it with Kool-aid

and the person was fairly upset.

The police came and told us it
wasn't a good idea to do that,

especially since
we weren't citizens.

We thought we were
going to get deported.

- I honestly did
not get a lot of their jokes.

All the other boys had read
the book, and in the book,

the kids all have sex with Bev.

The boys knew this,
but I didn't know,

and so they kept making
references to this fact

and they were just going
above my head.

So finally, my mom said,

"Why don't you just
re
ad the book?"

And so I read it
and I was kind of horrified

but in a way it was
kind of liberating too.

Because when I was 13, you know,
you're going through puberty

and your things
are changing and stuff.

So it was just this
very sort of odd entry

into adolescence for me.

Th
ere were scenes that I

never thought twice about,

meaning the orgy scene
with the kids with Bev.

Pennywise
and It are the things

that drive the losers
to
in the novel

have this very,
very obscure and weird orgy

in the middle of the narrative

where they're all
having sex with Beverly.

It's to ward off It,
to keep It at bay,

because childhood
is what It loves.

- I am an eater
of worlds and of children.

- And if you want to push away
from the thing

that's scary to you,
you push into the thing

that it can't feed on,
and you do that through sex.

I just thought it was one of

Steve's digressions
down a lane that didn't work.

I remember the guy

who played Officer Nell.

He completely lost
his shit one day.

There's a scene
wh
ere we're all

in the Barrens,
building the dam.

The policeman comes along
and says,

"Hey, what are you kids
doing down there?"

and one of the kids said,
"M
asturbating."

We all started laughing
and then also it carried on.

We couldn't get the next

like three or four
takes.

We weren't focusing

and I remember getting the "this
isn't professional" lecture.

There were
times that Jim pulled them aside

and gave them the lecture.

And I sometimes would sort of
lose it a little bit on set

and say,
"Look, you're actors here.

I know you're having fun.
I love you're having fun.

You have to do your job."

Our director
ca
me to me and he said,

"Jim, I'm losing it
with these kids."

So I said, "I need a meeting
with the kids

before we break for lunch

and I don't want
their parents there."

They rallied around and I said,
"You are making a picture.

If you came here because
yo
u want to be an actor,

then I can tell you right now
whatever you're doing on the set

will reflect on whether
you work again.

I do recommend that you pay
attention to your director.

Shape up, guys."

And walked away.

The adults were--

When they got the--
all the adults together,

'cause some of them
knew each other

and they were all buddies,

they were actually more noisy
than the kids.

- We used to try
to make each other throw up,

okay, by being as gross
as we possibly could, right,

to make the other person gag.

We're adults, you know, sort of.

It just got louder
and louder and louder

until the assistant director
finally came in and said,

"You guys have to leave.

You have to go outside
on the street.

You can't be in here because
we can't get any work done."

- I want to make sure
you remember my name.

Oh god, Henry Bowers.

My agent called and said,

"Guess what?
We've got an audition for you,"

and I said,
"Oh really, for what?"

She said, "Stephen King's IT."

She said,
"It's a big production,

it's a miniseries,
it's incredible."

She said, "Please work your ass
off for this audition."

'Cause, she said,
"It's once in a lifetime."

I knew.

hundreds of kids
had probably gone in there.

Big guys
were gonna go in there
and be the traditional bully--

which I don't find
very threatening,

to be honest with you.

And so I thought,
ok
ay, who can I channel?

I always refer to Dennis Hopper
because he's a very small man,

but he conveys an intensity
th
at's menacing.

Jarred
was an exceptional actor.

You're dead, fat boy.

For someone who was his age.

The level of commitment
that he had was frightening.

I went in for the audition

and the casting director
grabbed me and he said,

"I've got to get you
to the producers right away."

He said, "You're exactly
what they're looking for.'"

And I said "Me?"

And again, here I was,
this scrawny kid,

and I was being
plucked out of that group.

He just had--
something about that guy,

he had some sort of
menacing appeal about him.

- Ta-ta, girls.

- I could be wrong, but I believe
I auditioned for it three times,

and the first one
was for Henry Bowers

and I wanted that part
very badly.

- I want you to think
about that before you die.

As we know,

Jarred Blancard
got Henry Bowers.

And what character
I played on IT

is actually
a little contentious,

because in the script
I was Patrick,

and I notice that IMDb,

and depending where you look
on
line I played Victor,

which always confused me

when the fans were like,

"Hey, we loved you playing
Victor in Stephen King's IT,"

and I was like,
"You mean Patrick,"

and they'd be like,
"No, Victor,"

and I'm like,
"No, it was Patrick."

The very first
th
ing that I did

was another iconic film
called NeverEnding Story

where, ironically,
I played a bully.

I managed to get typecast
in kind of that bully role--

not because I was big,

just because I was intense
and could beat people up.

Let me show you.

And I could
re
ally burp on command.

- Without throwing up,
as well, I might add.

In the book,
it's-it's obvious

that Henry is badly--

I mean, abuse doesn't
begin to cover

what he suffers
at the hands of his father

and he has this true fear
of his father.

I'm not a method actor

but I did keep that
a bit in mind

when I was attempting to
torture and ultimately kill

these poor children, right?

He needed to transfer
those feelings of helplessness.

He wanted to impose
that same fear on other people

that he suffered
when he went home at night.

There's one scene in the film,

it's the only scene
where my character is vulnerable

and that's in the classroom

and that's when
he's being threatened

to be kicked out
after a disturbance.

There's a crack in my voice
when he says,

"But my father
will tan my hide."

and that sort of
typifies the fear

that he has of-of his father.

I actually get emotional
about this because

my dad's passed.

He, uh, wasn't
supportive at all.

He never went to
an
y of my plays,

he sort of scoffed at all of
my dreams and aspirations.

But I remember
that he came home from work

and I said, "Dad, I got it!"

and his shock and the pride
and the sadness

that he hadn't embraced
this dream earlier.

And from that point on, though,
it was nothing but-but pride

and-and-and
it was a wonderful thing.

I apologize
for getting emotional.

I wanted to be
as
sensitive off camera

as I possibly could.

Yelling these racial slurs and
these obscenities, you know,

calling him, you know, fat boy
and all of that kind of thing,

I wanted to make sure
after the take that

he knew that
that's not the way I felt.

Or what, boy? Or what?

You know, he always told me

how uncomfortable he was
with having to say

some of the things
he had to say to me,

which was great.

'Cause it was
some harsh words, man!

It was some harsh words said.

I'd always
apologize afterwards.

And the Americans were quite

astounded by that; they thought,
"Well, you're playing a part."

There's a scene
where I get confronted

by Henry Bowers,
where he's supposed to carve

the "H" in my belly.

Hey look, it's the fat boy.

Top of the day, fat boy!

- And it was probably the scene
that I feared the most.

I thought for a moment

that he could very well lose it

and go ahead and just, you know,

start the artwork on my stomach
right then and there.

- Come on.
Don't really cut him.

Cut him? Huh?

Cut him?

He made it
ve
ry easy to be afraid.

But I remember
that being probably

the most difficult scene
for me to film.

The only
source of disappointment for me

was the fact
that we couldn't go as raw

and as bold
as they did in the book.

The violence
is something that I just--

I wanted to go further with it.

I just felt it would have been
more effective

if we were able to do that,

knowing fully well
that we weren't able to.

Henry Bowers.

There were
two adults that were cast later

- and Green/
- Epstein
were very sweet

about allowing us to look at
so
me people that were friends.

Henry. Hen.

This is scaring me already!

It needed
a special
quality person.

And in this case,
he was being cast after the boy

who played Henry Bowers, who
was also a very special person

and
had a strangeness about him.

- I tell you, people will
always remember Henry Bowers.

Michael Cole,
he was from a show

called Mod Squad
that I grew up on.

He wasn't
tr
aditionally a badass

but he just showed that side
and so he was just kind of

one of these little gem finds,

somebody that had
some gravitas.

- After all those years,
Michael had attained

a patina of strangeness,
which some of us do.

And so when he came in
to talk about it,

I felt very positive
right there and then

that he could pull
that roll off as.

, okay,
that strange little boy

grew up to be this strange man.

I'll pay you back,

I'll pay you all back!

- Not many casting
directors will do this.

I got down on the floor
cr
awling around,

and I was so shook up and sweat
was starting to run down,

and Victoria got down
on the floor with me,

sliding sheets of paper
in front of me

so I could get the cue.

Boy, what a champion.

I met Michael Cole

and he was perfectly polite

but not very effusive
or
- or friendly,

and I-I actually backed out
of his trailer and I thought,

"I'm just gonna leave you alone
to your business."

So, he did a great job
obviously.

Pe
nnywise is wonderful.

I mean, he's charming and scary

and both elusive
and enthralling, you know.

He's like any good drug.

Like you just want to go to it,

but then you regret it
immediately.

Pennywise
is much more overtly comic--

- Won't do
any good to run, girly boy.

as a lure for the kids

and as a sort of perverse

set of jokes for the audience.

But when he scares,
he scares the crap out of you.

He found the way
to really lure you in

like Georgie in the sewer.

My boat!

Exactly!

When Georgie
is first taken by Pennywise,

which is a great scene
when he follows the boat

down the street in the rain.

S.S. Georgie.

The effects guys had done this

brilliant job to figure out
how to get the boat to flow

all in one take.

No, please no.

Tommy Lee Wallace
op
ened the sewer grate,

which was just a manhole cover

which was about four feet away
from the sewer,

and had Tim crouch down
and speak--

Hiya, Georgie!

- -into the sewer.

We had
a strange day to shoot it.

You can almost always count on

overcast in Vancouver,

but this day
was sunny and bright,

but "We better go ahead
and do it because

here we are
and the set is built."

You can see
the rays of sunshine

coming through the scaffolding

that they built to
cr
eate the rain.

I had trepidation about that

but the effect
was kind of wonderful.

The light was doing weird things
and of course you could see

the rain really well because
it was backlit by the sun.

Then you get
to the actual sewer.

That was a set.
It was done outdoors.

The set was up high
and Tim was just standing

with his face
up against the opening,

so we were on a riser,

looking down as if
we were on the street.

Little Georgie
at the beginning of the film

when he's chasing his paper boat
an
d I grab him,

he stopped and said--

- "Tim, you're scaring me,
you're scaring me."

- "It'll save you
a little acting, won't it?"

That wonderful little boy.

Do they float?

.and Tim Curry's performance.

They float, Georgie.

- .to me,
that's what that scene is.

Not much in the way
of special effects.

You'll float too!

- One of the scenes
that was left out

of the final showing of IT
was that scene where

Sharon comes to the door
and is presented with

a fireman holding
the body of her son.

Holding me
with my arm in my sleeve

and the blood dripping
out of the sleeve.

It's pouring rain

and she opens the door
an
d there he is,

and I spent all day screaming

as we did take after take.

I guess
si
nce it was made for TV

that that was pushing
the envelope a little bit.

We were certainly
aw
are that we were doing

a horror movie for television.

George, .

And back then,
we were very limited

to what you could show.

We were breaking new ground,

because I don't remember

before any kind of material
like this

that I saw on television.

Sci-fi, horror.

Float.

- .blood, and there was
a lot of that.

And we had to work with

the program practice department
at all times.

There was a scene where
the kids become

blood brothers and sisters
an
d they cut their hand

and they place
their palms on palms.

We had to change that

because it was
in the early '90s

and it was during
the time of AIDS.

So, we wrote the scene
to spit in their hand.

- The advertisers
were very nervous.

This was a children
in jeopardy story

and we had to focus it on

the fact that it was
a Stephen King novel,

that it was very popular.

Executives,
creatives knew it,

but program practices still
had to follow their guidelines

and we were constantly
up
against them,

pushing it, and fighting

for the creative integrity
of the piece.

Broadcast Standards
rejected the picture,

and the head of Broadcast
Standards at the time

happened to be someone I knew,
so it was easy for me

to get on the phone
to New York

and ask for help.

The gentleman that was
in charge of

censorship at ABC

agreed to come out and
look at the picture with me.

His staff had rejected
the picture on so many levels

that every note that they had
meant re-cutting the picture

and I just simply said,

"We're not cutting
a piece of it."

"This is what you bought.

You bought
a Stephen King horror.

We'll be able to show it

in a very respectable,
responsible way--

IT is
based on subject material

that may be unsuitable for,
and unsettling to

younger and impressionable
vi
ewers.

- "but we can't
deny the audience

what they come to expect."

I had made my argument

that these were
re
collections of adults.

The blood.

I cleaned the whole thing up
that very same night.

And so therefore,
we could get away with

children in jeopardy.

The next day we were told,

"No changes. Move forward."

Cue background!

Background!

Eric, go.

The idea of the carnival scene

is straight out of the book--

the hand that reaches
right out of the photo album

and grabs at them.

- Come on,
it's just a drawing!

The photo
book was built by two people,

Mike Steffy, and Bob Comer.

Both of them had this
amazing mechanical ability

to build what we call
tabletop gags,

really intricate things.

- That was
my favorite thing,

that you see a photograph
and I come alive.

Such a great idea.

- I have never seen so many
cables attached to something

that operated those pages
to turn.

It was a complex
push me-pull me cable system.

They had to hit their marks,

so they had to have individual
cables for individual pages.

It took them weeks to build it.

When they operated it,

it was one of those "How do you
hide all that stuff?"

Visual effects
just didn't have the money.

All right, here we go. Yeah.

Thank you and clear, please.

What I really, really

wanted to emphasize was that
"I
think I see Pennywise

back there in the background
somewhere

but he's just not
bothering anybody."

An
d I picked up the book

and the first thing we saw
was just a big hole in it.

And he's like, "All right,
I want you guys to act

like you guys
are reading this book,

like Pennywise is dancing
do
wn the street.

He jumps on the pole."

Uh, remember the uh,

remember the pull-up.

- Don't watch
the clown, background.

Keep doing your own stuff.

Remember that, uh,

little lower, and.yeah.

- "And then, here it comes--"

Aah!

- Oh, shit,
he's right in your face,

just like that.

- ."and I need you
guys to react."

It was
Tommy's hand that kind of

came up through there.

I remember later
seeing the completed scene

and being blown away.

- I thought that was
a good powerful moment.

Makeup effects
were booming at that time.

Garage shops
were popping up everywhere,

and
Fantasy II
was like
an all-encompassing

movie effects house.

We had a makeup effects wing

and Bart Mixon
was the lead person in it.

Tommy Lee Wallace

knew him
from
Fright Night 2
.

I had set up
their creature shop

for Fright Night 2,

so it was just natural
for Gene to bring me back in.

I had a crew of about a half
a dozen artists on the show,

but I-- probably selfishly,

I wanted to do Pennywise myself.

That was Bart's baby.

Bart sculpted it and did
the whole application.

- Fozzie Bear
does the twist?

Early on,
I was doing a fair amount of

clown research and sketching.

- The idea, first of all,
was to do a lot of research

on representation of clowns
over time

to have a historical
perspective.

We have to think of
the size of the actor

and how big we want him to be,

how nimble we want him to be.

What we're doing
with the costume is

we're serving his face;

everything has to serve
the expression.

- The first time
I did prosthetics

I was doing Legend
for Ridley Scott,

where I played the devil.

- He had mentioned
that Rob Botin had literally

casted every inch of his body,
so I think he wasn't anxious

to have his life cast
done again.

That's all right,
I can bear it.

He was
ab
solutely weighted down

with special effects makeup
to the point at which he was--

to most people was no longer
recognizable as Tim Curry.

I was prosthetic
do
wn to my waist

and it was all glued on,

and to get it off
they used to sit me in a bath,

tear a hole in my head

and pour in solvent.

And the two guys
who were doing it were insane,

probably because they were
ar
ound solvents so much.

You do get horribly
cl
austrophobic,

particularly
if your whole face is covered.

So
, his only reservation

was too much makeup
.

He wanted to be able
to
use his face.

We pushed and pulled about
how much makeup to do.

I met with him
and we had a few conversations

about what he did
or
didn't want to wear.

He did want to go as light
as possible with the prosthetic.

So there was some evolution.

I'll kill you all.

I'll kill you all.

I saw it
as
a fantasy character.

It was an illusion that It's
presenting to these children.

I wanted it to almost
be like a living cartoon,

just as harmless
an
d as pleasant looking

as it could be,

and that's why the colors

are pure white
an
d red and blue

and very primary
an
d very clean.

I didn't want
there to be cracks.

And at least when he's
presenting himself to the kids,

he's casting this illusion,

so why would he
have flaws in it?

The usual
accoutrement of clownmanship,

it was definitely
going to be whiteface.

It was really the classic

Bozo the Clown approach,
to begin with.

- He came over to the shop,
we took a life cast,

and then we produced
copies of busts of his head.

I believe I had three of those
that I did clay sketches on

where we did
three different concepts.

There was a hobo clown

with jowls and droopy face,

and then there was
one in between

that had more prosthetics
on his face

but made him a little more
angular and meaner.

Once we-we produced the makeup,

then we went up
to Canada to test it.

And we did two makeup tests.

When we got to Vancouver,

and were doing our test makeup,
I
was so looking forward

to that day and that moment

when we would be able to sit
with Tim with the makeup on

and see this clown with

bloodshot eyes and fangs
and a scary face.

The first test
was just the head and the nose

with a paint scheme
that was what Tim had wanted.

He dictated the patterns
on the face.

The second test, we added
the cheeks and the chin

and then I painted something
closer to what I had

on my original design,

where he's got like a bigger
red mouth and the blue eyes.

They photographed
both of those.

The decision was made
that he didn't really

need the cheeks and chin,

which at the time
I was kind of like,

"Hey, wait a minute!"

But I think he looks great
like he is.

The paint scheme evolved
a little bit further.

We did at least one more test

where we just painted
Ti
m's face white

and then refined the patterns.

- It's always kind of tough
having that stuff stuck on you.

Th
ere was a certain line

that I was going past,

and Bart Mixon was in
on that conversation,

as was Doug Higgins,
the art director.

We were all having discussions
about Pennywise's look.

I was excited about adding
ce
rtain appliance makeup

like a bulbous forehead,

perhaps exaggerated cheekbones,
big extended chin,

things to cartoonize his face.

Tim took a stand about that
and said he really didn't want

to wear these things.

He agreed to try them on.

- And he said, "If you want me
to wear this scary makeup,

then I think you have
the wrong actor."

And I thought, "What?"

He had great
patience and great forbearance,

because I think that job
was a purgatory for him,

I really do.

One more, Tim.

And God love him,

he created a character

that has scared
the pants off of generations.

He said,
"Look, just make me

as a straight clown
and I will scare the audience."

I thought, "Of course.
That's why we have Tim Curry."

Go!

Now.

"He will scare us.
We don't need all of that."

- In the end,
we removed all of them

except the bulbous head,
and I'm glad we stuck with that,

but he was totally right that
his face is so expressive--

Give us a profile, Tim.

- -that it was good

to not see it too done up
with rubber.

But Tim could
act through a manhole cover

if he wanted to,

because he has that kind of
charisma and presence.

The look
that we ended up with

was based in a large part

on the Lon Chaney Phantom
of the Opera.

That's why it's got
the upturned nose

and the bulbous head.

I didn't film
any of my scenes with Tim Curry

'cause they didn't
want to scare me.

I was walking back to go
to my trailer to go change

and Tim Curry is in full gear,
his clown makeup, everything,

and he walks by me
and he goes, "Hi!"

And it scared me so much.

To be honest that's the reason
wh
y I--

I still haven't seen the movie,

because I'm terrified of clowns.

- There was quite a good
photograph in a magazine of me

heading for the makeup trailer

in a bathrobe with a Marlboro
dangling from my face.

Tim kept
himself quite aloof from us.

He would basically just
hang out in his cast chair,

chain-smoking in full makeup

and whenever he saw us,
he
would just go

"Grrrrr!"

Those kind of people

always make your job easier.

The kids were
actually quite scared of me.

I'd been playing it really cool

and then we wound up in a van

going back
to the hotel together

and I was wearing
a Rocky Horror shirt

and I was like trying
to cover it up,

and he saw it and he was like,
"Oh, you like the movie?"

And I go, "Yeah, I'm--
I'm into you, dude!"

I have a picture of him
in
half a clown costume

with me standing next to him
lo
oking slightly scared

that was taken off the set

after shooting
this shower scene

and I was too scared
to ask him for that picture.

My mom, however, was not.

I encouraged
him to be really big,

because it's almost like
a character

who's satirizing himself
constantly.

He's being self-referential

when he tells these
awful, stupid jokes.

- Do you have
Prince Albert in a can?

Then, urrah, urrah, urrah.

Urrah, urrah, urrah.

.urrah, urrah,

you know, it's like,
"Wait,

he's just demented;
that's all there is to that.

But wait, he's not even a clown,
he's some other kind of monster,

so, oh, I'm uneasy."

Pennywise
is this really strange, queer--

not in LGBTQ sense,

but like queer as in strange,
as in aberrant.

I think that the novel,
more so than the miniseries,

is very much grounded
in the fact

that Pennywise

It is in disguise

as Pennywise; Pennywise then

disguises himself as, say,

the Creature
from the Black Lagoon,

the mummy, the leper.

- Get out of Derry
while you still can!

Beverly's dad in a dress,

so it's drag on drag
on drag on drag.

It's all about these
very queer elements,

which is what horror fiction
is
always about.

It's always about the thing
on
the outside.

So, King is really
pr
eying on those fears,

those fears of the outsider.

Stan?

My
first day of

shooting on the set
was with Jonathan Brandis,

where Stan goes to do some
bird watching and ends up in

a house--

Hello?

Stanley.

Yeah?

and of course,

It manifests itself
as that mummy.

Jim Mclaughlin
sculpted the mummy for me,

which was basically a makeup
that Jim had done

a year or so earlier
an
d I was like,

"That looks cool, you mind
if we use that in the movie?"

So he just, you know,
ma
de me a copy of that.

There's a werewolf
which was really cool

that was done by
No
rman Cabrera.

- This.
this isn't happening.

He's like,
"We're doing an homage

to I Was a Teenage Werewolf,
the Michael Landon creature,"

and I was like,

"Uh, yeah.
This is a no-brainer, man.

I want to do this."

Wh
en I saw the stunt guy

in the suit the first time,

all I wanted to do
was touch it.

Werewolves
was always my favorite monster

in every movie, and I loved
I Was a Teenage Werewolf

'cause he had these
really cool streaks

and he wore like
the school jacket

and he was-- kind of
was like a greaser.

I basically got
my old monster magazines out

so I had the references
all there.

I knew exactly
what they were going for,

and I liked giving it
a slightly updated twist.

I look at night two

and I think it suffers
in part from the problems

of being only a night two.

Steve's narrative
as it accelerates

benefits from more time
rather than less.

That said,

the fortune cookie scene
in the restaurant

and the scene

when Bev goes to her old house

and another woman
is
living there

who is by no means

what she appears--

- If you're wise,
you'll run dear, run,

because to stay will mean
worse than your death.

--were as good
as anything in night one.

I worry about you, Bevvy.

I worry a lot.

Norman Cabrera
di
d the Al Marsh corpse

when Beverly goes back
to her home

and the old woman turns into
the corpse of her father.

I had to do
the whole upper-body cast,

which is one of the most
gr
ueling things

that an actor can do.

They tried to Krazy Glue
me
aly worms to my face,

actually live worms
jiggling on my face.

But we couldn't
get them to stick.

So, we had to lose
the mealy worms.

When you get on some sets,

you can tell
th
at it's done in a way

that's going to make it
look good on camera

but it doesn't really look
that great up close--

not the case with this set.

Standby for picture.

Inside that set,
you really felt like

you were underground and
in some sort of sewer system.

- Okay. We're there.

The set was awesome.

It just kind of transformed you
and took you to another place.

Who's missing?

- Stan!
- Oh no!

There was a scene
where Stan got pulled aside

from the group
with Henry and Belch.

- Hi, kid.
I uh, guess you're the first.

I got a chance to confront

Ben Heller
and you felt like,

"Oh, this is it now.
He's a dead man."

I felt that little segment
came closest to encapsulating

what Henry Bowers
wa
s capable of.

- I want you to think
about that before you die.

Belch, the guy
that gets pulled in the pipe,

the lower half of him
is a dummy so that

they can fold, because it's kind
of hard to fold yourself over

like he does.

- When they told me
how I was going to die

and the dimensions of the pipe,
I started stretching,

so I'm just in there

trying to get my head
to my knees

so that
I could fit in there,

and one of the stunt
coordinators said,

"You're not going to be
able to do it. I can't do it."

I wanted to do my own stunts
but they were like,

"No, no, it's an explosion--

- -"and you can't do that."

You know, I was
17 years old and being like,

"Yeah, yeah,
I did my own stunts!"

As a young effects person,

I got a lot of the crappy jobs.

We're down in the sewer,
and there's that pipe

that light goes through,

and there's a bazillion holes
in that pipe.

Well, my job was, first,

drill all the holes.

You got to make them
look perfect

and then you had to go
inside it,

because with the camera
sl
iding in there

and also we had the actor
th
at got sucked into it,

all the holes had to have

all the little sharp edges
taken off.

I just spent 12 hours a day

doing that.

Hey, Henry?

- I was lifted
off the ground.

I was told to just have,
they described it as

dead eyes, right,

so there's no real
reaction to the fact

that you're being pulled in
by some mysterious force.

Belch!

I love dying on film.

There's a finality to it.

Just the ability to. let go.

- This is
battery acid, you slime!

My character, Eddie Kaspbrak.

I don't know, I like to think
in
kind of a way

he was the one who did
the most damage to It.

Like, the most protective with,
you know,

the battery acid scene.

- He was a warrior
on the inside.

When the kids saw him,

I wanted him to be
li
ke this cartoon clown,

and when the adults saw him,
I wanted him to be

this like a horrific caricature
of
that previous clown.

The adults know
that this isn't really a clown.

They know that it's a monster,

and so there's no reason for It

to necessarily
maintain this illusion

other than
just to screw with them.

And my original concept art
for it had blue eye sockets

which would become
eye sockets of the skull;

just the way
the mouth was painted

would suggest
more of a skullish mouth.

And for various reasons,
we didn't go that route.

But when we ended up
doing the battery acid look,

the disfigured part is what
that makeup would have been,

only on his entire head.

When we shot
th
at sequence in Canada

with the battery acid,

we didn't have time
to switch him over

so we just shot the whole thing
with the regular clown face.

At that point,

the intention was to not use
the disfigured prosthetics

and I went back to LA

kind of a little heartbroken.

And we were building
th
e miniature Pennywise

for when he goes down the drain

and I had it sculpted
with the normal face,

and literally

the day I got the front half
of the mold done,

Gene Warren comes back and goes,

"Hey, we're doing some reshoots

and we're going to use
the disfigured Pennywise."

Now I had to take a life cast
of his quarter-scale head

and do like a tiny prosthetic
to make it look like

the disfigured Pennywise.

To Tim's credit, the only
re
ason that that makeup,

even though it's
a heavier makeup,

is in the movie is because
he had seen the prosthetics

and he volunteered to wear it
for the day that we shot it.

- I loved the fact
that we really got to work

with Tim in that scene.

Stan, no!

Bev, the stones!

Hurry, Bev. Kill It!

Kill me?

Oh, brat!

You are priceless!

- When Pennywise gets hit
in the head with

the silver stone and knocks
the chunk out of his head.

Bam! He nails him!

Initially,
we shot that in Vancouver

with just the regular
Pennywise makeup.

Kill it, Bev! Kill it!

Make that happen fast.

As soon as this-- as soon as
he gets hit. Okay?

So, bam!
He gets hit in the head.

- I think it was
an interesting choice

by Stephen King
to have Bev, the only girl,

be the one who actually
ha
s mastered this weapon

and can use the weapon
against It.

- It's like
it's supposed to be Bev.

In the movie,
it's a little silver earring

about so big,

but for the shot of it

flying out of the slingshot
an
d hitting him,

Bart sculpted at least twice
a duplicate of the earring.

It's flat on the back with--
with a little hole

so they could mount it
on a-- on a rig

and I think it probably rotated.

I remember practicing

with a slingshot at home.
On
ce I fired it

right into the camera

and it ricocheted
around the map box.

Took me a while to live
that one down with the boys.

They were like,
"I'll do it!

I'll do it!
She's incompetent!"

I was just like, "Oh, men."

Kill It, Bev!

Filming those scenes

in the sewer
and working with Pennywise.

- .

And you. are next.

- .definitely some of
the more memorable times.

Action!

It really
put you in the mood

and it really
gave you the feeling

that you were actually
doing these things.

Similar to the shower scene.

It's okay, Eddie.

Hi. I just wanted to say hello.

- The entire thing
is built on a sound stage

so you have a bathroom
that is seven-eighths complete.

- This is a little
inconvenient, Eddie.

Just hold on while I make
a few adjustments.

- It was a combination
of stop-motion

replacement animation.

We sculpted the stretching
of the drain in the tiles

and it's sculpted
frame by frame and then cast

and then replacement,
one frame at a time.

Yo
u have all this noise.

The poles blowing
the compressed air,

which are loud bursts from
12 to 14 different poles.

The director
yelling cues at me.

have Tim Curry

reciting his lines for me

in Tim Curry Pennywise voice
over a loudspeaker system.

So, when you add
all those factors together,

me having an asthma attack
at the very end of the scene--

--it's not really
too much acting going on there

because there was
a lot of adrenaline,

there was a lot of pressure.

Well, sports fans,

this has been a real hoot.

The Chinese restaurant scene

was sort of our scene
out of
Alien in that

the director did not let us see
what was going to happen.

First of all,
you have to remember

you have all these actors

sitting around who have known
each other for years.

Ritter and I were very naughty.

Poor Tommy, the director,

I think wanted to
really kill both of us.

We were back in that time

so we were always relating to
ea
ch other in character

as childhood friends.

And Annette,
wh
o is so sweet

and such a dear heart

and such a "nice girl,"

has got such a raucous
sense of humor.

I mean, we were just outrageous.

You put a bunch of actors
around a table for hours,

it's crowd control
at
a whole other level.

I think it was very hard
and I want to apologize

right now to the director
and everybody.

And then after that,
staying in character

knowing what this meant,
that this was again an omen.

This thing is never
going to leave us.

The little thing with the eye,

the fortune cookie,

that was my favorite.

Ba
ck then, you had to do

everything practically.

And if they had to fix it,
it was a lot of work and money.

So, the challenges
th
at IT brought

to the effects department

as a mechanical,
pr
actical thing,

was amazing.

I loved that scene

and that's--
in my fading memory,

making that scene is one
that's always stood out for me.

That and where
I'm telling them all

we have to be strong
and we have to stay together

and we're going to do this.

And the reason
I remember that scene

is that I just wonder
how terrible

my performance was
at that moment.

I've been afraid to revisit it
because I don't want to know.

- For years,
I've been getting paid

to scare people,

but I'm the one
who's been scared.

I was just
always afraid, oh god,

was I as hokey
as I thought I was?

There was so much love
and fun at the table

in the Chinese restaurant.

As difficult as it may have been
fo
r them to get it quiet

and do the work, that chemistry
and that craziness

is one of the things
that makes the picture work.

I was responsible
for Stan's head in the fridge.

Sorry I'm late!

We were building
the stuff in Burbank

and then flying
up
to Vancouver.

And so I had a big trunk

that I would carry
the Pennywise wigs

and the various prosthetics.
Yo
u'd go through customs

and typically
they would open it up

and uh, you know,
"What's all this stuff?"

So, I'm going through this time
with the severed head in it,

so I'm like, you know, "Oh, well
this ought to be funny!"

- From here to here
he built a kind of a false neck,

so it looked like my head
was sitting flat on the rack.

Stan's head in
the fridge was a combination

of a prosthetic on the actor

to simulate the cut neck.

I'd already
slid into this refrigerator
,

and you have to picture
it's a rack,

and the rack goes into
a little notch

on either side of it.

So you have to
get it just right,

and it has to go in
at just the right angle,

and I'm part of the rack.

They had a shelf
with a cutout in it

that slid up against his neck

and then,
al
l that was rodoed out

by my brother Brett.

So it was just a neck prosthetic

and then a death makeup
on Richard.

- I slide into this thing--

I just hate everybody
and I just want this over with.

So I'm lying there like this.

Then they start putting
these little cans and stuff

around my head
and I'm just going,

"Can we just shoot this?
Can we please just shoot this?"

"Yeah, well,
we've gotta just. "

I said, "Come on,
let's shoot the fucking thing.

I need to get this off,"
and then it's like,

"Hi, kids! How you doing?
Yeah, we all float down here."

You know, and I just--
I just wanted to kill somebody.

When I read the novel,

all thousand pages of it,
I remember going,

"Wha--? All this,
and it's a fuckin' spider?"

Damn me to hell.

- Oh man, come on. You can do
better than that rubber spider.

Aww.

I was a little let down,
to be frank,

and you're talking to someone
who really loves that novel.

If I'd had one
scene that I would have put in

that I think is one of
St
eve's great sequences,

it was where they build
the underground clubhouse

and use it as a smoke hole
and hallucinate IT

as this extraterrestrial
arrival eons ago,

and I think it would have added
to
the narrative

and just straight-out
storytelling,

and maybe directed the spider.

.into the junk pile.

The one thing I loathed

was what they did with him
at the end.

They made him into
this awful plastic spider.

I believe in the Tooth Fairy.

But I don't believe in you!

Which wasn't scary at all.

Then I got
over that and thought,

"Okay, it's a spider.

Why not?"

All right, here we go.

Because it's so much more
than that in the end.

And there's this cosmic struggle
in space or space-time,

or Bill's mind or somebody's
mind, you know?

Come on. Can we have
the deadlights out on a cue?

- Yep.
- Yes.

It gets into territory

that to me it was unfilmable
.

Okay, and the entire creature

is going to breathe
a little for me, right?

Here we go.

I think it has to breathe
a little heavier than that.

John Thomas, sharper moves!

So, I think
we were all a little bit like,

"Okay, now we're in
a
monster movie.

Now we're going to be
fighting this big toy."

Somebody rear back

with their fist.
John! That's it!

More of that!

It culminates in a struggle.

.between
humans and a giant spider.

All right, fine.

Our challenge of course
was to come up with a creature

that looks incredible.

Only we had champagne ideas
and a beer budget.

Look at this masterful piece.

Yeah. Look at it, look at it.

- Look at this.
Aaron Sims. Aaron Sims.

Joey.

- That's a bad
sculpture, very bad.

Oh, no it's not.

It's a very cool sculpture.

Aaron's doing his magic.

- It was me
and a colleague and friend,

Joey Orosco,
which was creating the spider

that would be in the climax
of the show.

Look what he's doing.

- It sucks.
I'm fucking it up. Look at it.

- Hey, this is
for family television.

- Hey!
No, we got the edit coming now.

- Going into it,
I guess subconsciously,

I didn't want people to just go,
"Oh, it's just a spider."

- This is like--

I know, but.

I didn't want it
to be just a big black widow

or a tarantula.

- Yeah, well I got--

- It's spider-like,

but it was never
in
tended to be a spider.

The design evolved,

so there was a lot of different
designs that were created.

Some were more spider-like

that felt
th
ey were very grounded

to an earthbound spider.

What we ended up going with is

something that felt
otherworldly.

If you actually delivered
a giant spider--

- The two effects guys
on the picture,

John and Gene.

- -living in a cave.

It took the film
from this frightening,

heady picture,

to a Ray Harryhausen
action adventure.

But that's what the script
called for,

so we did whatever
we thought we could do

for the time and money,

and we built
a stop-motion spider.

It was Bart
who created the model.

Did a masterful job
and it was beautiful.

And I'd signed off on that.

- Well, I don't want to
point too many fingers.

For some reason,
I think the spider

gets a lot of grief
that I don't think it deserves.

When the
crew came up from Los Angeles

and they got it out
to
assemble the spider,

there was this kind of,
"O
h, by the way,

the spider, as planned,

was unwieldy.

The physics of it
were just such that

we couldn't make that happen.

It was just too heavy.

It was collapsing
under its own weight."

You're assembling something
that doesn't look anything

like we agreed upon.

.

And now
I'm just supposed to shoot it?

"Yeah, that's show business.

You don't have any more time.
You've got to do this."

Hold them up there,
hold them up. right arm in.

So make it look
the best you can.

Drop!

God!

Cut. Aces.

- So I tell people,
"Hey, it could have been

fighting a turtle
in outer space.

Would you have liked
that better?"

- I thought the spider
was fantastic,

to tell you the truth.

The way it looked in the shop
wa
s really cool.

We had 12 weeks to build it.

Unfortunately,
the shooting of the spider

was literally
the last two days of filming.

All right, take it up to,

uh, a hundred.

Okay!

I
think a lot of times,

for time constraints on set,

or for whatever reason--

Put the hands out slowly!

Cut!

- The director
can't get the shots

or doesn't shoot it
to its full potential.

- What we built and delivered
was capable of

a lot more than
wh
at's seen in the film.

- And
positions, please .

- There we go.

The big problem
with a lot of these movies

is that you get the set
and they're like,

"Okay, put it
in front of the camera.

Okay, make it move."

wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. "Okay."

- Cut.
- Cut.

Nicely done.

And you're
li
ke, "Hold on a second,

this could do much more-- "
"No, no. We got it. We got it.

We're moving on."

The head had
a full range of movement.

The fangs could move,

the mouth, the mandibles.

- Get the hands around
and then just pinch around.

.

The fangs dripped poison.

The eyes moved.

- Who's got the eyes?
- Mike.

There you go.

Go to town, Brent.

Brent Baker
was my main mold maker

and then he also performed
inside the spider.

Move the butt, Brent.

- Yeah.
- .

- Move it
like a bug would move it, Brent.

He is! That's it!
It's a frightening bug.

It's always
a
challenge when you're

playing inside a creature suit.

How is it in there, Brent?

You gotta speak up, Tommy.

You okay, Brent?

They would insert me through
the rear of the spider

and pull off the abdomen,
an
d slide me up into it.

He was also inside the spider

when they flipped it over
,

but it had these metal ribs
around it

and those we hadn't
thought to pad.

When I say, "Action,"

IT will overlap,
that is to say,

a few steps back,
you'll come in,

Rambo on the creature,

it will do its roll
and go down.

It's all fun and games

until they go to push
the spider over on its side

and like a fool I was like,
"I'll do it.

Yeah, I'll be in it, you know.
How bad could it be?"

And, action!

So, yeah,
he
goes like 90 degrees

and then just slams
into these aluminum.

square stocks.

- Cut!
- Cut!

Brent, you all right?

- He had some nice bruises,
but he was a trouper.

Show your bruises.

Let's see the bruises.

You're going to be a star.

They're starting to turn

kind of greenish now.
There's the other one.

It's turning all kinds of
interesting colors.

I was effectively
blind inside of there.

Not to complain,

because it's still great fun,
you know, playing a monster.

It's like, "Hey, I'm almost
like part of the cast."

It was his idea.

He wanted to be an actor,
so
there you go.

There's a couple
of close-ups of the spider

that for some reason
they shot it at like 50,

60 frames a second,
maybe even slower,

to where it's barely perceived
that it's moving.

I think if we delivered a spider
that did as little

as what you see in the show,

I think they would have been
pissed off.

- Unfortunately, the timing
session after the fact--

after all the photography
is done

and you've got your movie
and now you're in a session

where you're looking at a scene

and you're making it
lighter or darker;

at that point,
I
was in Tahiti

on this other picture.

And so, the timing session
went on without us,

with another member
of the organization who--

he and I had not
communicated successfully.

So, it was lit up
pr
etty brightly.

You saw everything,
and I was dismayed.

And it was out there
before I could correct it.

I would go back and correct it
no
w if I could.

Okay and roll.

Five fifty-five,
George .

Five fifty-five,
Baker .

I kept saying there has to be

a weakness based in fear,

not in physical strength,
that's inside Eddie.

What is the secret that he has
not been able to tell anyone,

including these people?

We're now crawling
through the tunnel

towards
wh
at will be the spider,

and that day
I'm saying to Tommy,

"What are we going to do
about Eddie,

and Eddie's fatal flaw,
his big fear?

He hasn't confessed.

We know what's
going to happen to him

moments after this."

- Push Dennis closer
to the monster, please.

Ready? Uh, Dennis' face
is blocked.

- Yeah,
go back up into that.

- And then.

action!

- Cut!

Eddie
deserves to be completed.

So, I said to him at lunch
before we shot the scene,

"What if he's just a virgin?
That's it. Finished."

Well,
I can't help you with that, pal,

but thanks for sharing.

Richie! Let him talk.

- We all saw how
uncomfortable, awkward

and really strange it is to--
it's not really strange,

it's not really strange at all,
it's a choice.

But how society reacts to people
that aren't sexual,

and Eddie was not.

- I could
never sleep with somebody

that I didn't love.

And I've never
really loved anyone.

except you guys.

- And.

one, two, three, go!

There are things
I wouldn't have done,

had I had the ability
to see in retrospect,

was the revelation of IT
as the spider.

Had I been around, I would have
come up with something

involving Pennywise.

- Some things you can't
know until after the fact.

Who knew that Tim Curry was just
going to be such a home run?

It was like, okay, the book says
he disappears at this point

and never to return.

But like probably
most of the audience

when I watch it, I go,
"Oh! There goes Tim."

- Oh, I wish we could have
one more scene with him.

Some kind of goodbye scene,
some way of.

well, maybe we should kill him,
you know?

Or maybe his face should be
the spider's face.

Or-- I don't know.

That's a problem
we never solved.

- You're ducking way down.

You got to look for the rock
standing straight up.

- Okay.
- It may look--

- it may feel a little goofy, but.
- I-- I didn't realize.

I guess after
Beverly wounds the spider

with the slingshot and the rock
and it walks away,

when they came upon him
in that last bit,

had that been Tim Curry again,
mortally wounded,

I think that might have been
a more satisfying ending,

because you were just
so invested in Tim

as that villain at that point.

- It would have been nice
had we been able to solve it,

because I agree
that the story drops Pennywise,

and he's such
an endearing character,

he deserved a better exit.

All right,
bring it to a climax now.

Everybody all at once.

- And, cut!

I suppose
pe
ople will revisit this

and know that it's a puppet,

but it doesn't matter.

The story returns
to the world of the psyche

and goes back into
very good territory, I think.

It goes back to the heart
of
what the deep

thematic structure
of
the piece is.

The hardest part about that
for me really

was the fucking bicycle.

Forget the horror and the drama,

it was the bicycle
that was the problem, okay?

That's where the fear
and the terror was.

I loved Olivia.
Great sense of humor,

but a fragility
which I thought was wonderful.

And she was terrified
that I was going to kill her.

I know she was.
I think she said she was.

I just said, "Please god,

let me not kill
this actress and myself."

Hold on.

You can see
the terror on my face

if you look very carefully.

Behind the veneer
of performance,

it's there.

I will forever associate Olivia

with going downhill
at speed on a bike.

Alan and I
went down to the agency

to meet with Stephen
and show him the picture.

They had a screening room
all set up.

And I remember
he
came up to us

and I put my hand out to shake
Stephen's hand

and he had a rat in it,

a rubber rat.

It was kind of like
a shocking thing, you know,

and it was, I don't know,
maybe to break the ice.

We had a few exchanged words

and then he saw it privately.

He didn't want us to be there,
bu
t, um, we later heard

that he liked it
and he was happy.

I was
certain when we got a final cut

that we had a good movie.

At the premiere,
I was really just thinking

that I can't believe I'm
actually a part of this film.

The results were,

that we got a viewership
of 30 million people.

It was huge in the ratings.

It was viewed as a big success.

And the press on it
was very positive.

I think
the legacy of the original IT

was this brilliant
performance

on TV, which you would
usually see in film,

in your living rooms.

- It was just
an extraordinary event to.

have this King first piece for
TV as a mini-series

come out and stake
that kind of territory

and resonate so strongly
with people.

It became the proverbial
water cooler mini-series.

And I think it then
went on to have

the most unexpected afterlife.

I think the reason

that IT was so successful
at scaring people

is because these characters
don't have the ability

to name what scares them
or the forces that oppress them.

The high point was going up

and receiving the Emmy.

I'm told that when
th
ey announced my name.

Bam! I was gone.

You know, as if I thought
they were going to take it back

if I didn't get up to
the podium quickly enough.

- He just made magic
with that score.

- Meep, meep.
S.S. Georgie underway.

Rocks! Rocks?

Rocks!

It
's a very lonely Emmy

sitting in my house,

but that's all right.

I credit Tim and Stephen King
for my Emmy.

It's very difficult
to write music

when the story is flawed
or when the acting is poor.

When the story is.
I mean, that great,

and the performances
are that good,

that all adds up
to any department's Emmy.

You're elevated by those
performances in that story.

- One of the reasons that I think
it's a cult favorite

is because
of Tim Curry and the clown.

He
's everything.

He is the poster,

he's on T-shirts.

Pop culture has taken

ownership of this miniseries.

Without the benefit of any CGI,

just balls to the walls talent,
Tim nailed it in a way that.

you say "IT"
and people say "Tim Curry."

Me?

- I think it's really
interesting how

the Pennywise character
continues to gain that fan base.

As the internet grew,

I started to really realize

how much of an impact he had,

and the film had
on a lot of people.

Now we're in an age where

nostalgic things
are being passed down.

We generationally are choosing
what icons to perpetuate

to future generations.

Pennywise
as an ultimate horror icon,

a demonic infinite that has
access to your deepest fears,

I don't think that's gonna
dull anytime soon.

I'm just so happy to be part

of what Stephen King created
and part of what Tommy Lee

gave to America.

Being familiar
wi
th Stephen King's work

and actually being able to
help realize this

on any capacity
was a thrill for me.

We did it! Yeah!

I enjoyed the tension.

I mean, not as a person
but as an actor.

Throughout the whole process
of
shooting IT,

I was learning at
such an exponential rate.

I was discovering
that there was more to acting

than standing on your mark.

- Take the outside

instead of the inside, Brandon.

There's a lot of room
right there.

Not too far out,
squeeze in behind Bill.

I was loving it.

I think it fits well

amongst some of the great
icons of the genre.

There's even a comedic aspect
to it that was never intended.

- Beep-beep!

I never
would have known or thought

that it would have become
a
cult classic.

I always thought
that it was a great story.

But I never realized

that it would go
as far as it's gotten.

I'm very proud of it

and I'm used to the idea
of
cult movies,

so I'm glad
th
at it's having a life.

It's a cracking story.

The popularity of IT

down through the years
is multi-layered.

I think first it speaks
to really fine performances.

That's first and foremost.

A good story as the foundation.

A great script,

at least in Night One.

Competent directing.

That's a formula for something
that will be viewed

more than once among those
who consider it a favorite.

They'll watch it again.

Down here we all float!
Traduit & Synchro By T0RR1

Traduit & Synchro By T0RR1