Andres Muschietti's IT is not just a great horror movie, but also a great coming-of-age tale --featuring an immensely talented ensemble of young actors who perfectly embody the Loser's Club of Stephen King's original novel. It's very apparent from their collective performances that they all got along on set... but kids being kids, they also couldn't help but mess with each other. I learned about one such incident late last month during the IT Los Angeles press day:
Chosen Jacobs: They pranked me! Oh my gosh. We had a sleepover once.Wyatt Oleff: At my house.Chosen Jacobs: At his house. It was always at his house. And they said whoever falls asleep first gets pranked. So I'm not mad, because I was part of the game! And I said, 'I'm not going to sleep!' I went to sleep. I wake up and I have Nutella in my ear, and I'm like panicking! 'I can't get it out of my ear! They're going to fire me! I can't hear!' I run in the shower with my clothes still on, and just try to wash it out. But that was a crazy experience.
Actors Chosen Jacobs (who plays Mike), Wyatt Oleff (Stanley) and Finn Wolfhard (Richie) were grouped for on-camera interviews last month, and it was while sitting down with the trio that I learned about their behind-the-scenes shenanigans. As the young actor stated, Jacobs is totally cool with the whole thing in retrospect, being subject to the rules of the game that they were playing during the sleepover, but it's very clear that it seriously freaked him out in the moment.
The actors noted that innocent pranking wasn't limited to sleepovers, as they also had a good bit of fun during the actual production of IT trying to scare one another (with admittedly mixed results). One thing that they noticed, however, was that the production schedule and the material being filmed had a legitimate impact on their behavior and interaction -- and, unsurprisingly, a lot of it had to do with the presence of a certain clown.
Finn Wolfhard: We definitely tried to scare each other. It worked... sometimes?Chosen Jacobs: Most of the time no. If I had to breakdown the whole time of shooting, it started off like this. We got there, we bonded, we did fun biking scenes where you see us laugh and make jokes. So, fun. Pennywise comes [imitates plunging line graph], it starts to get dark, it starts to get creepy. I feel like we pranked each other less once we met Pennywise, because Pennywise was scary enough. We tried to hide in each other's closest -- things like that.
You can watch Chosen Jacobs, Wyatt Oleff and Finn Wolfhard discuss their mid-production pranking by clicking play on the video from the IT press day below!
I had a lot of fun talking to the young stars of IT, as well as director Andres Muschietti and producer Barbara Muschietti, and have more from my conversations with them coming your way soon here on CinemaBlend. Give them a read, because they'll be a great way to prep you for the theatrical release of the highly-anticipated feature -- which arrives in theaters this Friday, September 8th.
