Tilda Swinton Was Considered To Play Pennywise The Clown In ‘It’

The first trailer for Andrés Muschietti’s It, starring Bill Skarsgård as the floating nightmare that is Pennywise, was watched 197 million times in its first 24 hours of release. That was a new record, besting the 136 million views for The Fate of the Furious. There you have it, folks: clowns are officially more popular than The Rock. Anyway, anticipation for the horror movie (which released another trailer earlier today) is extremely high, but it could be even higher. Imagine if it was Tilda Swinton terrorizing the Losers’ Club.

It almost happened.

“We auditioned literally hundreds of potential Bob Grays or Pennywises and it was an amazing process,” producer Barbara Muschietti told JoBlo during a press set visit. “We got to audition people that don’t audition anymore and a huge gamut of talent; women, younger age, older age, we really went through the spectrum of actors.” When a reporter jokingly asked if Tilda Swinton — as in, Oscar-winning, stylish-alien-who-walks-among-us Tilda Swinton — was considered for the part, Muschietti replied, “She wasn’t available. No, no, I swear to god. She was not. We had a slot to shoot the movie and she wasn’t available so she didn’t even audition. But of course, we all thought about it.”

It would be a very different movie if Swinton had been picked to play Pennywise instead of Skarsgård. It also means I would have needed to paint Pennywise on the back of my truck. That probably hurts the re-sale value.