‘It’ Movie 2017 Cast Member Bill Skarsgård Compares Stephen King’s Pennywise With Heath Ledger’s Joker

Bill Skarsgård has done the unthinkable. The actor behind the dark character of Pennywise in Stephen King’s It has compared himself with Heath Ledger.

According to the actor, the character in the 2017 movie is quite different from the one that got Ledger a posthumous Oscar. Heath wanted his character to be extremely real. The Joker in The Dark Knight wants to create chaos in the society and totally disturb the social balance. Skarsgård believes The Joker is not even human. He is “pure evil.”

However, Pennywise has smaller plans. He just wants to scare children, without turning the entire city against him. Skarsgård, who has a boyish charm otherwise, plays the sinister clown in the 2017 movie. Despite calling Pennywise “less evil,” he admits it is still quite dark as a character.

“Of course, Pennywise is still dark and sinister — and he’s going after kids,” the Swedish actor told PEOPLE.

Skarsgård earlier revealed how he came up with the evil smile. The 2017 movie has already broken many records in terms of its box office collections. Skarsgård apparently got inspired from his brother’s smile and used it for the demonic clown.

Skarsgård was talking to Conan O’Brien on Tuesday, when he told the host that it was his older brother who could smile in a strange way. Though the actor was just 10, he apparently learned the trick.

This means Skarsgård has been practicing the eerie grin since childhood. He used the smile even to scare his little brother. He used to point his lower lip in a strange manner and give a weird smile. Conan joked and asked him how his brother is doing these days. Bill assured that his brother is fine.

“He’s OK.”

The older brother whom Bill is talking about is none other than Gustaf Skarsgård, who is an actor as well. He plays Floki in the popular History Channel TV series, Vikings.

Regram from @therock:????I saw this movie two months ago and it instantly became one of my all time favorites. Not only does it redefine the horror genre, but it’s so layered, smart and brilliantly scary. Congrats to the awesome young cast aka The Losers Club for killing their performances. To Andy Skarsgard for delivering an iconic performance as Pennywise. And to the entire crew and my good buds at Warner Bros/New Line. And most of all congrats to director, Andy Muschietti for knocking this out of the fucking park. Great talking with you man and we’re gonna have some fun working together down the road. As a huge fan of the horror genre, this one’s special. Have you fully recovered @simonegjohnson????? #IT

A post shared by IT Movie???? (@itmovieofficial) on Sep 6, 2017 at 4:41pm PDT

The Hollywood Reporter earlier reported that It made box office history. It earned $123 million in North America, as well a $185 million worldwide. The last topper in the horror genre was Paranormal Activity 3. However, its earning was way lower ($52.6 million) than this movie.

It has got 8.1/10 rating on IMDb and 86 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

[Featured Image by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images]