"Got the baby face" - IT: Welcome to Derry creative team takes viewers behind-the-scenes of Bill Skarsgård's iconic Pennywise transformation 

Season 1 of It: Welcome to Derry wrapped on 14 December 2025, and HBO Max featured the creative team of the show to talk about the phenomenal hair and makeup of Pennywise.

Barbara Muschiett mentioned how Bill Skarsgard used to spend hours on makeup and hair. It was a team effort that gave him the transformative look.

Sean Sansom, the prosthetic production head, mentioned how Bill had a face like a baby and eyes that were big, which were then managed by giving him a bigger skull, killer's teeth, and yellow eyes.

"Bill's got the baby face with the big eyes. Plus, he can also drool on command."

Read on to know how the creatives behind the hair and makeup of Pennywise in It: Welcome to Derry explained their experience.

Here is how IT: Welcome to Derry creative team transformed Bill Skarsgård into his iconic character

Andy Muschietti, who is the director and executive producer of It: Welcome to Derry, created the general look of Pennywise, sketched with a bigger head and an innocent yet cryptic smile. It was the storyboard artist, Rob, who came up with the idea of making his smile the way we see it in the show.

"I created the general look of Pennywise. It was an evolution. Rob McCallum, who was one of the concept artists, did the smile that goes all the way through the eye and the eyelids and ends up in a spike. It was a team effort. There's a deformation in his look that I find very unsettling. You see the creases, wrinkles, and warts. Horrible hair, not to mention the putrid teeth and the yellow eyes."

Sean Sansom explained how they did the makeup and structured his face to suit the evil character.

"Once Bill steps in, we put the skull piece on. We had big holes cut in the back to vent the heat and the sweat. Then we do the forehead. With the forehead, we didn't totally seal the edges. We would know in advance if he was gonna go from an angry brow to a normal one. It would actually be on the call sheet."

The makeup team first used to make the big, creepy smile freehand, and eventually, they got the stencil made after approval.

"Andy did sketch with that smile. The first test makeup we did, we had to freehand it. There was no stencil or anything. So once it was approved, we had the stencil made to reproduce it for every application," explained Sean. He continued, "Andy wanted it kind of broken up, too, and not perfect. So it is always kind of patchy, just to give him more of a doll-like appearance, like the paint is cracked. He had mascara to make his eyes look as dark as possible around the yellow lens."

Sean also explained how Pennywise's killing teeth were designed to look almost like piranha teeth in It: Welcome to Derry.

"The kill teeth, which are all jagged, are almost like piranha teeth. It's a full upper and lower denture, and he can't really close his mouth with them. Because all the teeth overlap with one another."

Andy Muschietti unveiled the magic behind Pennywise's Curly hair, along with Debra Johnson, the hair production head, who did not use a curling iron for that but a set of rollers and actually made a wig of real hair, particularly for Pennywise.

"The hair of Peenywise in the series is a little more curly on he tips," said Andy.

Barbara Muschietti, the executive producer, also talked about the hours of makeup done on Bill while he used to sit silently for hours.

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"Bill is a saint because when he plays this character, between putting it on and taking it off, it's like three and a half to four hours of his day."

For Bill, this makeup time used to be his quiet time to get into his character of Pennywise before scaring off the viewers with his menacing screen presence. Therefore, the hair, makeup, prosthetics, storyboarding, and other concept artists worked hand in hand to create this iconic character that history will remember as the most cryptic killer clown.

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