Every Time Bill Skarsgard Drastically Transformed for a Spooky Role: From Vampires to Pennywise the Clown

Skarsgård cemented his role as a scream king when he portrayed Pennywise in the It film franchise. His filmography, however, was already filled with other horror projects including Netflix’s Hemlock Grove.

The actor, who played Roman, costarred alongside Landon Liboiron and Famke Janssen in the series, which was based on Brian McGreevy‘s 2012 novel of the same name. Hemlock Grove followed the strange — and supernatural — events that took place in a fictional town in Pennsylvania.

Skarsgård also made an impression when he landed a part in Castle Rock. In 2018, Skarsgård opened up about his decision to lose weight for the role so he could portray a character who is found after living in solitary confinement.

“I basically did the Keto diet. You get into ketogenesis and you just eat a lot of fat and no carbs,” Skarsgård exclusively told Us Weekly at the time. “I lose weight quickly. Before scenes, I would not drink water or eat for 24 hours. It does a lot. It changes your face.”

Skarsgård noted there was a specific meal he was excited to have after production wrapped, adding, “We shot a scene in the shower at block five. Even though it was episode one, we shot while shooting episode five so I’m like, ‘Well f—k, I need to stay skinny all the way up to the point.'”

He continued: “I didn’t eat for 24 hours. The day before, 24 hours before that, I had a salad and didn’t drink any water. So I was f—king skinny and parched. Then after that day of shooting, I wanted a beer and burger. I didn’t drink for three months, either, so I went to a shady dive bar and it was great.”

Skarsgård has remained devoted to his craft by going above and beyond for projects such as The Crow and Nosferatu.

Keep scrolling to see how Skarsgård transformed for most of his roles:

The psychological horror ran from 2018 to 2019 and took inspiration from characters, settings and themes from stories created by King and his fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. Skarsgård, for his part, who was secretly held prisoner for nearly three decades.

"I wanted to lose weight because I wanted the character to be more gaunt and ghostlike and malnourished and look weak," he told Us in 2018. "I think it played real well into the role. It gave off this boney, skeletal look."

KEEP READING 

• Sudan’s warring parties agree to open two aid routes, mediators say
• Legendary host dies at 88, he was a pioneer of talk shows: “His show broke RECORDS”
• Secret Service Agents Reportedly on Leave Amid Attempted Donald Trump Assassination Investigation

Many horror fans became familiar with Skarsgård for his role as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The villain was originally introduced in Stephen King's 1986 novel It, which followed seven children who get terrorized by an evil entity in the form of a dancing clown. Skarsgård put his spin on the demonic clown after Tim Curry originally played Pennywise in a two-part miniseries. 

"Tim Curry’s performance was amazing. It was such a good interpretation of Stephen King’s character in the book,” Skarsgård, who is returning for HBO’s prequel series, shared with Us in 2017. “We were making a new film, a new adaptation of the book. Of course, I wanted to bring something different and unique to it. Otherwise, I don’t see the point in remaking something. I hope that people can consider both performances separately and appreciate them for what they are.”

Skarsgård admitted that he felt some self doubt about his performance. “I think the first step was there were people who had to be convinced that I could do the job. There was a long process of getting cast. Once I got the role, I was like, ‘I got the role!’ Then I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I got the role. How am I going to do this? How am I going to live up these expectations?’” he recalled. “Andy and Barbara, the director and producer, trusted in me, and I really didn’t want to let them down. It was a mixed feeling, but ultimately, of course, I loved the whole thing.”

The horror series introduced Skarsgård as the heir to a wealthy family who starts to look into brutal murders in his supernatural-esque town. Roman, however, isn't just human but also half Upir a.k.a vampiric beings native to Ukraine.

"Roman is a very complicated character. He's dealing with so many things and to put a girl in that equation? He might eat her. And it's not going to be something that's sexy or cute, like 'Oh, everyone wants to be bitten by a vampire.' You do not want to be bitten by Roman," Skarsgård joked to Pop Sugar in 2014. "So that's what he's going through and you'll see more. And you'll see him becoming a powerful, scary thing and him dealing with it. It's a very delicate thing. It's important to me to establish it: I don't like vampires being sexy!"

The dystopian movie, which was released in 2023, featured Skarsgård in the lead role of a deaf martial arts expert named Boy who killed people in extremely violent ways as a way to avenge the death of his family.

"This was an incredible journey into something completely new for me," he told Entertainment Weekly in 2022 about losing 20 pounds for the role. "I had two months to learn how to pretend how to fight well. Action coordinator] Dawe Szatarski is a wizard, and he might've just pulled it off. The abs I credit to another wizard, my main man Valdemar Fredriksson. I just showed up, slightly late." 

This 2024 remake, which stars Skarsgård, FKA Twigs, Danny Huston and Jordan Bolger, is based on the 1989 limited comic book series of the same name. The source material was first adapted in 1994, and star Brandon Lee infamously died while filming the movie. Skarsgård took on the role of a murdered musician who is resurrected to avenge the deaths of himself and his fiancée.

Director Rupert Sanders broke down Skarsgård's transformation for the part, telling Vanity Fair in February 2024, "I think the beauty of Bill is that he has a disturbing beauty, and as he transforms through his loss he becomes this thing that even he can't control."

Sanders explained he drew inspiration from Post Malone and Lil Peep for the character's look. "It's the moment we realize bad things are coming," he noted at the time.

In an August 2024 interview with Variety, Sanders shared a glimpse into the actor's diet, noting, "I’d take Bill out to dinner, and I’d always just order for him because I knew what he was eating. It’s basically steak tartare and raw eggs.”

Skarsgård also opened up about his rigorous workout routine with a trainer. “We kept adding a little bit of weight onto what I’d already been doing, but I didn’t want to be too big either,” Skarsgård shared. "They wanted the Crow to be ripped, but the character Eric shouldn’t be. So we did a lot of weight training and ate a lot of protein.”

The first trailer for the 2024 remake of the film of the same name, which was based on Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, offered a brief glimpse at Skarsgård in the role of Count Orlok. Director Robert Eggers hinted at Skarsgård's surprising shift into the vampire — and confirmed it wasn't created digitally. 

"Basically I was like, 'What would a dead Transylvanian nobleman actually look like for real?' Bill lost a tremendous amount of weight," Eggers told Total Film in December 2023. "He’s so transformed in every aspect that I don’t know if people will give him the credit. You can see Bill [as Pennywise] in the It make-up, you can’t detect any Bill here. He worked with an opera coach to lower his voice an octave. I think people are going to think we treated it digitally, but that’s his performance."