\u201cIt: Chapter Two\u201d<\/a> \u2014 both directed by Andy Muschietti \u2014 the new drama is set in 1962 in the fictional small town of Derry, Maine. Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd, who played Pennywise in the films, will reprise his role during the season.<\/p>\nThe large ensemble of child actors and adults features several Black characters, including Air Force Maj. Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo); his wife Charlotte (Taylour Paige), a civil rights activist in a Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat; and son Will (Blake Cameron James). Also featured is Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider), the town\u2019s theater projectionist, and his teen daughter Ronnie (Amanda Christine).<\/p>\n
Developed by Muschietti, his sister Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs, the creators have prioritized increasing the intensity of the films. But the Muschietti siblings add that they are also incorporating certain messages into the mayhem. Many of the Black characters face bigotry and resistance in the predominantly white town that echo challenges that people of color currently face.<\/p>\n
\u201cStephen is a master of weaving these issues into his stories, and it\u2019s impossible to think of doing one of his stories without having that texture front and center,\u201d Barbara Muschietti said.<\/p>\n
The Muschiettis, in a video call, discussed diving deeper into the story of Pennywise, getting their young cast to act like kids from the 1960s, and what gives them nightmares. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Siblings Barbara Muschietti and Andy Muschietti on the set of HBO\u2019s \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Brooke Palmer \/ HBO)<\/p>\n
How soon after the two \u201cIt\u201d movies did the idea of a deeper dive into the world of Pennywise come about?<\/p>\n
Andy Muschietti: The novel was the inspiration. There are all these enigmas still lingering, enigmas intentionally left unresolved in the book. Part of the greatness of the novel is that you finish 1,200 pages and at the end, you still have no idea what \u201cIt\u201d is and what it wants. It\u2019s all speculation. We had conversations with Bill about how great it would be to do an origin story of Bob Gray, this cryptic character, and give him the opportunity to play the human side, the man behind the clown. It\u2019s about completing the puzzle and uniting the stories that lead one to another, creating a story with the final purpose of getting to this conclusive event, which is the creation of Pennywise, the incarnation of evil.<\/p>\n
Barbara Muschietti: Once the idea start percolating, we got in touch with Mr. King and he loved the idea. At the beginning of the pandemic we went to (then-Warner Bros. TV chief) Peter Roth. He bought it in the room and we\u2019ve been on it ever since. Not a day of rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Music Man\u201d plays a prominent role in the first episode, and it gets dark pretty quickly. I\u2019m a huge fan of that movie, and I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll ever be able to look at that joyful musical the same way again.<\/p>\n
Andy Muschietti: I actually wanted us to create a musical ourselves that would pretend to be a movie from 1962. But we would have spent so much money and energy. So we started a quest for the right musical. \u201cThe Music Man\u201d was made by Warner Bros. in 1962, and it\u2019s about someone coming to a small town not unlike Derry, talking about trouble, trouble. And it just seemed to fit.<\/p>\n
Barbara Muschietti: We also hope a lot of younger people will be curious and go see \u201cThe Music Man.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is the superpower of \u201cIt\u201d that makes it a story that keeps giving and giving?<\/p>\n
Andy Muschietti: There are a lot of things people connect to. One of them is childhood. Most of us cherish those years as being full of magic and imagination. We\u2019ve all been children and we\u2019ve all been afraid of something. The novel is a testament to the virtues of childhood, and those virtues normally disappear when you become an adult. Arguably the adults are always the enemy in the world of \u2018It.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
Apart from the clown, there\u2019s a whole mythology that has yet to be connected. My purpose in this series is to reveal the iceberg under the water.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Black characters, including Hank (Stephen Rider), Ronnie (Amanda Christine), Leroy (Jovan Adepo) and Charlotte (Taylour Paige) play central roles in HBO\u2019s \u201cIt: Welcome to Derry.\u201d (Brooke Palmer \/ HBO) <\/p>\n
You could not have planned the timing of the show coming on, but it seems like the topical issues addressed in this show, like bigotry, have a relevance to what\u2019s going on in the country today.<\/p>\n
Andy Muschietti: What\u2019s going on is not new. It\u2019s just found a new expression. It has been going on and on in cycles. We have this illusion that things are good, but around the corner is another dictator trying to come. We came from Argentina, and we don\u2019t have the kind of racial tension that America has had for hundreds of years. Most of Stephen\u2019s books are a song to empathy in general, and denouncing injustice everywhere. It is important to show, especially in an era where some people in the country are trying to delete history.<\/p>\n
Barbara Muschietti: Sadly, these horrors keep haunting us, and racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia is still sadly a human condition, needing to find someone below you that you can punch. Yes, our history makes us a little more sensitive. We live in the United States, it\u2019s a country we love, but it is surprising …<\/p>\n
Andy Muschietti: Alarming.<\/p>\n
Barbara Muschietti: … that more people are not more concerned.<\/p>\n
Andy Muschietti: It\u2019s the fog that Stephen King was talking about. People, basically out of fear, look the other way, trying to suppress things they see, and forget. It\u2019s all part of the same reflection.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s immediately obvious that some horrific things will be happening in this show, even more so than the films. The imagery is really nightmarish.<\/p>\n
Andy Muschietti: Being a shape-shifter is the thing which keeps giving and giving, and there was a clear intention for us to raise the volume of intensity. You need to meet the expectations of the audience \u2014 they don\u2019t want to see more of the same. And we are also dealing with a different time when the collective fears were different because of the social and political situation of that era \u2014 the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis \u2014 was just around the corner. Then there\u2019s social unrest and segregation.<\/p>\n
Barbara Muschietti: I\u2019d like to say it\u2019s all very cathartic. We\u2019re very nice people. I swear.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
A demon baby birthed in Episode 1 is among the monsters seen in \u201cWelcome to Derry.\u201d<\/p>\n
(HBO)<\/p>\n
The show also has a great feel and look to it when it comes to depicting the 1960s.<\/p>\n
Andy Muschietti: There was a lot of instinctive respect and attention to accuracy, aesthetically and spiritually. It was the true work of a team in every department, the same folks who had worked on the movies. There was also the research from the writers.<\/p>\n
Most of the cast members are kids who did not live in that era. How do you communicate that era and feel to a young cast?<\/p>\n
Andy Muschietti: There is a lot of talking. Stephen King knows a lot about this because he was a kid in the 1950s. The book is so rich in detail. We have Ben Perkins, who is a child actor coach. And there is imagination. These kids like to play and at this age, they thrive when you don\u2019t put a lot of restrictions on them. The only thing that went overboard was the cursing.<\/p>\n
Barbara Muschietti: That\u2019s one thing that Stephen came back to us with. \u201cThere\u2019s too many f\u2014.\u201d We also send the kids with Ben who basically sets up a camp \u2014 a bicycle riding camp, a swimming camp, stuff like that which kids in 2024 did not have access to. We\u2019ve been doing that since 2016 very successfully. Because of all of this, all these kids have an incredible bond. They\u2019re friends for life. They get to say goodbye to adolescence on our sets in the most beautiful way.<\/p>\n
How long will you keep expanding the \u201dIt\u201d universe?<\/p>\n
Andy Muschietti: It\u2019s Derry, Derry, Derry all day. \u201cWelcome\u201d is an arc that expands over three seasons. Why is \u201cIt\u2019\u201d Derry, and why is Derry \u201cIt\u201d? We will eventually reveal a bigger story revolving around the existence of Pennywise.<\/p>\n
I have to ask \u2014 what gives you two nightmares? What is scary to you?<\/p>\n
Barbara Muschietti: Fascism. Guns.<\/p>\n
Andy Muschietti: Violence in general. We\u2019ve come so far as a civilization, and it seems like we haven\u2019t learned anything. What happened to empathy, and seeing what makes us similar, instead of things that divide us?<\/p>\n
Barbara Muschietti: And love and respect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mutant killer baby. Lampshades and pickle jars that come alive. Sinister sewers. A demonic clown that preys…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[24255,24257,10665,3558,4681,3410,48,52,51,47,50,49,1741,24260,24261,24258,592,24256,24259,3044,4610],"class_list":["post-33672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-andy-muschietti","tag-derry","tag-era","tag-hbo-max","tag-idea","tag-kid","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-lot","tag-music-man","tag-novel","tag-pennywise","tag-people","tag-sister-barbara-muschietti","tag-stephen-king","tag-story","tag-thing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}