Bill Skarsgård's first audition for Pennywise is pure nightmare fuel

There's nothing creepier than Bill Skarsgård's performance as Pennywise...until now.

The 2017 It movie was something that probably kept up kids and adults all night when the Skarsgård donned his weird clown get up.

From his bucked teeth to his flaming hair, the Barbarian star was terrifying, however, there's something even worse than seeing him as the demented demon clown thing.

Somehow it's even worse without the makeup:

Skarsgård took on the role of the dancing clown from Stephen King's 1986 novel after Tim Curry previously enjoyed the sewers of Derry, Maine, in the 1990 original.

Many people may have been sceptical about him felling those shoes, but I think we all agree that Skarsgård more than delivered.

Not only did he deliver the acting chops, but also the dosh after the film ended up taking in a staggering $702 million at the worldwide box office.

Critics also couldn't get enough and the film sits at 85 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

It was so good that even after an underwhelming sequel, a prequel series called Welcome to Derry is going to air on HBO Max in 2025 - and it has been confirmed that Skarsgård will be donning the clown makeup once again, as well as executive producing the series too.

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And his audition tape, which shows the moment he lures poor Georgie to a drain before biting his arm off and dragging him to his death, shows it wasn't just the clown makeup that was scary, but Skarsgård's top-tier acting.

Apparently he understood the assignment so well that during filming he left a bunch of kids traumatised.

Speaking to Movie Pilot back in 2017, he said: "At one point, they set up this entire scene, and these kids come in, and none of them have seen me yet.

"Their parents have brought them in, these little extras, right? And then I come out as Pennywise, and these kids - young, normal kids - I saw the reaction that they had.

"Some of them were really intrigued, but some couldn't look at me, and some were shaking.

"This one kid started crying. He started to cry and the director yelled, 'Action!'

"And when they say 'action,' I am completely in character.

Warner Bros

"So some of these kids got terrified and started to cry in the middle of the take, and then I realised, 'Holy s***. What am I doing? What is this? This is horrible.'"

With Pennywise so terrifying on screen, I can't imagine how much worse he would be in person.

Skarsgård has also previously said that taking on the role of Pennywise was a pretty rough experience.

In an interview with the New York Times, he admitted: "Everything I did took 100 percent of my energy.

"It was by far the most exhausting character I've ever done, physically and mentally."

So basically, at least it wasn't just the traumatised kids that were having a tough time of it.