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Two great actors have play Stephen King’sITvillain Pennywise the Clown onscreen , but who did it well , Tim Curryor Bill Skarsgard ? King has created many great , memorable villains over the path of his prolific calling , butIT ’s titular animate being might just be the corking , with the potential exception ofThe Stand ’s Randall Flagg . An ancient alien from another property called The Macroverse , IT ’s primary and preferred form is that ofPennywise the Dancing Clown , although he can become just about anything necessary to scare or lure in a victim .
In both screen adaption ofITmade to appointment , the creature spend the majority of its time as Pennywise , despite shape - shift into many more forms in King ’s book . It ’s not heavy to see why though , as Pennywise is such a engrossing fictitious character within a character , a clown who get down a sick delight out of torture nipper , yet also seems to be fairly truss by its chosen identity , pander in things like ridiculous dances and balloon trick .
Related : How Pennywise Fits Into Stephen King ’s Massive Book Universe
While both adaptations ofIThave their rooter , and quite a few King diehards savour both for different reasons , the fact is that they are very different in style and tone , and feature two very different depiction of Pennywise . Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgard both do their good to tilt their performances toward those respective tincture , but which one outshine the other ? We ’re attempting to answer that question .
Bill Skarsgard Was The Better Pennywise - Here’s Why
Before the host ofITfans who prefer Tim Curry ’s rendition cull up their pitchfork and torches , it ’s worth reinforcing that choosing Bill Skarsgard as the better Pennywise performer is not an bill of indictment of Curry ’s work . His Pennywise in the 1990ITminiseries remain imminently watchable and magnetic , and sometimes downright shivery . However , when it fare to more accurately capturing Pennywise as indite byStephen King , Skarsgard wins out . Skarsgard ’s version inIT2017 andIT Chapter Twonot only looks closer to how Pennywise is described in King ’s ledger , but he also pervade the character with much more threat and a sadistically evil timber .
Whether Curry improvize , or theatre director Tommy Lee Wallace teach him go to way over the top , Curry ’s Pennywise is just too much of a twat at times , to the point where his panic factor falls well . Curry ’s version of theinfamous Georgie sceneis terrific , and both player play the sequence about equally practiced , but later on in the miniseries , Curry just get too silly . Skarsgard featherbed in some silly moments , but they ’re usually followed with something creepy-crawly . Curry will sometimes do minute of arc on end of lame jokes and gag , and it just does n’t work . The " osculate me , fertile boy " piece is especially optic - rolling .
At the end of the day , we realize many fans will still choose Curry ’s Pennywise , and that ’s intelligible . As advert , his execution is never speculative or hard to view , it just all comes down to what one want from their Pennywise . AsITis a revulsion story , we intend the more frightening take on Pennywise is the better option . Still , it ’s impossible to make a definitive determination everyone will agree with , if only because Curry and Skarsgard both chose to play Pennywise in vastly different room .
More : Pennywise Is n’t the Only Member of IT ’s Species ( In Stephen King ’s al-Qur’an )
