Two great actors have played Stephen King's Pennywise the Dancing Clown, although he can become just about anything necessary to scare or lure in a victim.
In both screen adaptations of IT made to date, the creature spends the majority of its time as Pennywise, despite shape-shifting into many more forms in King's book. It's not hard to see why though, as Pennywise is such a fascinating character within a character, a clown who gets a sick delight out of torturing children, yet also seems to be somewhat bound by its chosen identity, indulging in things like silly dances and balloon tricks.
While both adaptations of IT have their fans, and quite a few King diehards enjoy both for different reasons, the fact is that they are very different in style and tone, and feature two very different portrayals of Pennywise. Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgard both do their best to angle their performances toward those respective tones, but which one outshines the other? We're attempting to answer that question.
Bill Skarsgard Was The Better Pennywise - Here's Why
Before the legion of IT fans who prefer Tim Curry's rendition pick up their pitchforks and torches, it's worth reinforcing that choosing Bill Skarsgard as the better Pennywise performer is not an indictment of Curry's work. His Pennywise in the 1990 IT miniseries remains imminently watchable and charismatic, and sometimes downright scary. However, when it comes to more accurately capturing Pennywise as written by IT Chapter Two not only looks closer to how Pennywise is described in King's book, but he also imbues the character with much more menace and a sadistically evil quality.
Whether Curry improvised, or director Tommy Lee Wallace instructed him go to way over the top, Curry's Pennywise is just too much of a goofball at times, to the point where his scare factor falls considerably. Curry's version of the infamous Georgie scene is terrific, and both actors play the sequence about equally good, but later in the miniseries, Curry just gets too silly. Skarsgard indulges in some silly moments, but they're usually followed with something creepy. Curry will sometimes do minutes on end of lame jokes and gags, and it just doesn't work. The "kiss me, fat boy" bit is especially eye-rolling.
At the end of the day, we realize many fans will still prefer Curry's Pennywise, and that's understandable. As mentioned, his performance is never bad or hard to watch, it just all comes down to what one wants from their Pennywise. As IT is a horror story, we think the more horrific take on Pennywise is the better option. Still, it's impossible to make a definitive determination everyone will agree with, if only because Curry and Skarsgard both chose to play Pennywise in vastly different ways.
