Actor Bill Skarsgard suffered nightmares about his creepy clown character in the It remake for months after filming wrapped on the horror movie.
Stellan Skarsgard's son was more than happy to fully embrace Pennywise, the character made famous by Tim Curry in the 1990 original, as he prepared for director Andy Muschietti's franchise revamp, but he had no idea about the affect it would have on his psyche until much later.
"I liken every character that I do to a relationship that you're in," he told Entertainment Weekly. "Pennywise and Bill go into this sort of relationship together, and I'm trying to figure out who he is and I have to devote so much time and effort to this other person - or thing, in this case - and that goes on for months."
Once cameras finished rolling, Bill was eager to finally let go of Pennywise and his dark thoughts.
"After we wrapped, I was in my childhood home in Sweden, sitting having coffee with my mum at our kitchen table, and realised, 'Oh, holy s**t, I don't have to deal with this relationship anymore!'," he said.
"It was a very quick shift of just feeling better, like, 'Oh my God, I'm relieved that I don't have to deal with the darkness of the character.' I likened it to an exorcism - him exiting my body and getting rid of the Pennywise toxins."
However, Stephen King's fictional character, an evil monster who abducts children disguised as a clown, continued to haunt Bill's dreams and it took a while for the 27-year-old to fully shake him out of his system.
"I was home, done with the movie, and I started having very strange and vivid Pennywise dreams," he shared. "Every night, he came and visited."
Bill will have to return to the dark place once again for Muschietti's It sequel, which will focus on the adult characters in King's 1986 book of the same name, on which the first film is based.
It: Chapter Two is set for release in September, 2019.
