{"id":303195,"date":"2025-11-24T06:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T06:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/303195\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T06:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T06:05:08","slug":"it-welcome-to-derry-reveals-madeline-stowe-is-playing-the-younger-version-of-it-chapter-twos-freaky-mrs-kersh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/303195\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018IT: Welcome to Derry\u2019 Reveals Madeline Stowe is Playing the Younger Version of \u2018IT: Chapter Two\u2019s Freaky Mrs. Kersh"},"content":{"rendered":"

IT: Welcome to Derry<\/a> Episode 5 is full of insane surprises that connect and upend the Stephen King<\/a> universe. However, the one that might be blowing your mind the most is the reveal of who Madeline Stowe<\/a> is playing in the HBO<\/a> show. <\/p>\n

It turns out that Lilly Bainbridge\u2019s (Clara Stack<\/a>) one adult friend in Derry, Nurse Ingrid from Juniper Hill Asylum, is actually the younger version of someone we\u2019ve met before in It (2017)<\/a> and IT: Chapter Two<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

**Spoilers for IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 5, now streaming on HBO Max**<\/p>\n

IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 5 reveals that Ingrid is actually the younger version of old Mrs. Kersh (Joan Gregson), the elderly woman that Pennywise uses to torture grown up Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain<\/a>) in IT: Chapter Two.<\/p>\n

In Stephen King\u2019s novel, It, the original Loser\u2019s Club kids return to Derry as adults to face a resurgent Pennywise (Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd<\/a>). While in town, Bev goes to her childhood home and discovers that her abusive father has died and Mrs. Kersh has moved into the place. Mrs. Kersh kindly offers Bev tea and during their conversation, our heroine gets the sinister suspicion that something\u2019s wrong. It\u2019s one of King\u2019s classic set pieces of rising horror and Andy Muschietti<\/a>\u2018s IT: Chapter Two added to the terror by implying that Mrs. Kersh\u2019s father, Bob Grey, was the original Pennywise the Clown.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re humanizing that old lady that turns out to be the crone,\u201d IT: Chapter Two executive producer and director Andy Muschietti told DECIDER. \u201cWhen we did IT: Chapter Two, we didn\u2019t know that years later we\u2019d be telling the real story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened in Derry in the \u201960s? Well, there is a daughter of Bob Grey and she\u2019s real. That doesn\u2019t mean that the old lady in IT: Chapter Two is real,\u201d he continued. \u201cBecause that woman died, actually, many years before.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the Mrs. Kersh that spooks Beverly in the film isn\u2019t real; She\u2019s a manifestation of Pennywise. The Mrs. Ingrid Kersh we meet in IT: Welcome to Derry is real. She is alive in the current timeline. She is Bob Grey\u2019s daughter and she may know more about It than she\u2019s letting on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great opportunity to create a character that was a big participant in the story and tied us very much to the origin of Pennywise and the story of Bob Gray,\u201d Andy Muschietti said.<\/p>\n

\"Ingrid Photo: HBO<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we landed Madeleine, that [role] grew, that flourished, because she\u2019s such an unbelievable actor. And I think she gave it an incredible dimension and and brain,\u201d IT: Welcome to Derry executive producer Barbara Muschietti<\/a> said. \u201cWe love that role. We would do a spin-off just on that role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the additional dimension that IT: Welcome to Derry gives to Mrs. Kersh is explaining that she\u2019s way more than a \u201ccrone\u201d or even Pennywise\u2019s daughter. Besides being a caring confidant for Lilly, she is also stuck in a loveless marriage to her cruel husband and she\u2019s the white woman that Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider<\/a>) has been having an affair with.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was excited [about Hank and Ingrid] because it was another layer that I didn\u2019t know. Especially in the audition, I had no idea,\u201d Rider told DECIDER. \u201cAndy revealed it to me when we were having a conversation and I was like, \u2018This is awesome.\u2019 Because he has so much more to fight for \u2014\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd to hide!\u201d IT: Welcome to Derry star Chris Chalk<\/a> added.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd to hide,\u201d Rider agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike, why is he not telling [his alibi for the movie theater murders]\u2026 if you wasn\u2019t there?\u201d Chalk said.<\/p>\n

\"Hank Photo: HBO<\/p>\n

By the end of IT: Welcome to Derry, Hank has reunited with Mrs. Kersh after the bus meant to take him to Shawshank crashes. It\u2019s clear from just one scene that the two star-crossed lovers share a deep love for one another. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I met Madeline, I mean, Madeline is a star, a G, and committed,\u201d Rider said, before revealing that Stowe didn\u2019t hesitate at all in building that intimacy between their characters. \u201cShe made it so much easier. Yeah, she\u2019s phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s Mrs. Kersh\/Ingrid reveal is just the latest way in which IT: Welcome to Derry connects with the characters in It and IT: Chapter Two. One of the little boys who dies in Episode 1 is Teddy Uris (Mikkal Karim-Fidler) is actually the uncle of original Loser\u2019s Club member Stanley Uris (Wyatt Olef as a child, Andy Bean as an adult). Will Hanlon (Blake Cameron James) is obviously Mike Hanlon\u2019s (Chosen Jacobs as a child, Isaiah Mustafa as an adult) dad. We even see another bullying Bowers in town. Andy and Barbara Muschietti confirmed to DECIDER that there \u201cat least two big twists where they\u2019re definitely connected to the characters that we know\u201d from the original still to come!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t spoil them, but you have to wait for them,\u201d Andy Muschietti said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, the bloodlines are incredibly important in Derry because Pennywise shows up every 27 years,\u201d Barbara Muschietti said. \u201cWhich is once a generation, basically.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, generational trauma is such a big theme in the book that it is almost impossible not to tell the story of ancestors, just to kind of comment on why people are the way they are,\u201d Andy Muschietti said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore it was called \u2018generational trauma,’\u201d Barbara Muschietti said, chuckling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IT: Welcome to Derry Episode 5 is full of insane surprises that connect and upend the Stephen King…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[104642,112087,136074,49,48,136075,75,79235,136076,136077,348],"class_list":{"0":"post-303195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-andy-muschietti","9":"tag-barbara-muschietti","10":"tag-bill-skarsgard","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-clara-stack","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-jessica-chastain","16":"tag-madeline-stowe","17":"tag-stephen-rider","18":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}