Oh and she’s totally anti-remake.
Nearly 30 years after Tommy Lee Wallace’s miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s It debuted on ABC, we’re gearing up for the return of Pennywise this coming September. It’ll be the first time the creepiest clown in horror history has ever made his way onto the big screen, and the first part in the planned two film adaptation promises to be way scarier than the 1990 version.
One of the actresses who starred in the original miniseries was Annette O’Toole, who played the role of the adult Beverly Marsh in the latter portion – as a child, Marsh was played by Emily Perkins, who went on to star in the fan favorite werewolf flick Ginger Snaps!
Speaking with the website Sechrest Things in celebration of Women in Horror Month, O’Toole just reflected on her experience in Derry, sharing fond memories from the Vancouver set.
She recalled working with the late John Ritter:
I remember laughing every day shooting that movie, which is weird considering it’s all so scary onscreen. I loved ALL my guys in IT. It felt like I was the only girl at summer camp, and all of the guys were trying to impress me. But… John Ritter is/was/will always be my favorite. There, I said it. John was a wonderful human being and we thought the world of one another. I continue to think that. I feel his warmth around me all the time.
O’Toole also has fond memories of working with Tim Curry:
Tim is the MAIN reason this movie works. I have to qualify this though, because I’ve only see IT once when it first was on, so I’m solely going by memory and what I’ve read about the movie. He spent a LOT of time in a separate make-up trailer with his own team of people who at first were doing all these tests for the Pennywise make-up. I remember that he read constantly — always had a stack of books. We only had one scene together that I recall, when Ben is kissing Bev but it turns out to be Pennywise. I had to wear Pennywise’s pants in one part of the scene because of a trick of how they were shooting it. This was WAY before all this CGI. It was just cool to be around Tim. We all went out a couple of times for dinner and he always came with us. We bonded as a little family, even with Pennywise. He is the reason for the family after all.
The scariest scene for O’Toole to shoot? Oddly, it involved chocolate syrup!
I mostly remember the cup of tea that had this weird sludgy chocolate syrupy stuff that was the blood. It was probably the only scene in the whole film that FELT scary to shoot, because none of my buddies were there. It was just me. Just me and the really scary lady and the cup of chocolate blood stuff.
So what does the actress think about the upcoming re-adaptation? She kept it brief:
I don’t think they need to remake anything that was good the first time.
Be sure to head on over to Sechrest Things to read the full interview.
