Welcome to Derry: On set of the It prequel tracing the origins of Pennywise and the cursed Maine ...

---

The cast and creators of the Stephen Kinginspired horrordrama talk 1960s Derry, the Hanlon family, and the larger multiverse. Welcome to Derry: On set of the It

The cast and creators of the Stephen King-inspired horror-drama talk 1960s Derry, the Hanlon family, and the larger multiverse.

Welcome to Derry: On set of the It prequel tracing the origins of Pennywise and the cursed Maine town (exclusive)

The cast and creators of the Stephen King-inspired horror-drama talk 1960s Derry, the Hanlon family, and the larger multiverse.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in *Vanity Fair*, Vulture, IGN, and more.

EW's editorial guidelines

October 16, 2025 10:00 a.m. ET

Leave a Comment

On HBO's *It* prequel series, hell isn't fire and brimstone. It's ice.

Encircled by sprawling floor-to-ceiling blackout curtains inside Ontario's Cinespace Studios is a manufactured frozen lake. Large fans pump fake (potato-based) snowflakes and mist into this controlled environment, creating the illusion of a swirling vortex around a crooked tree extending out across the dark, cracked surface. Children scream as overhead lights flicker to emulate lightning strikes, all while a certain demonic clown with wild glowing eyes skips maniacally through the chaos.

The horrors witnessed here on this day in June 2024 are unspeakable...in the spoiler sense. The crew of *It: Welcome to Derry* (premiering Oct. 26 on HBO and HBO Max) hustled back to work after months-long delays from the dueling Hollywood strikes to shoot key scenes with the kid cast, who were all in a state of spontaneous growth spurts.

"We experienced it from the minute we started shooting," Barbara Muschietti, an executive producer and one of the creative masterminds behind the eight-episode horror-drama, remarks to ** from her set chair off to the side of the action. "The clothes didn't fit, they had grown inches…. We were basically pouncing, waiting for the strike to be over to go straight to camera."

'It: Welcome to Derry' screens first 10 minutes of premiere at Comic-Con

'It: Welcome to Derry' stars introduce the Hanlon family and horrors of the 1960s (exclusive)

Through the howling storm, the sound of a lone bugle cuts the tension. You expect to see Pennywise, the form of a demented clown that Stephen King's child-eating "It" entity often takes while on the prowl, portrayed on screen by Bill Skarsgard. No, it comes from director and series co-creator Andy Muschietti, Barbara's brother and longtime creative partner. Aside from Pennywise himself, Andy is the tallest person on set. He trumpets a few strained notes, the signal that they got the shot and are ready to move on to the next setup.

According to Stephen Rider, the actor behind Hank, who runs the local Derry movie theater, their fearless leader found the musical instrument while shooting at a local Toronto high school that served as the set for many of the Derry High classroom scenes. "He just started playing it and was like, 'Well, I'm gonna keep on playing it,'" Rider recalls. "And from that moment on, that became the bugle."

Chris Chalk, who plays Dick Hallorann, a familiar name from King's larger literary lexicon, comments separately: "Towards the end [of the shoot], and actually at reshoots, he didn't play it sometimes. We went, 'We're not going until you play the bugle!' Now we've gotten attached."

Per Jovan Adepo, who stars as Leroy Hanlon, it's a sign that Andy "is a nut in the best way. I say that because you really get the impression that he just really loves his f---ing job. His intensity and passion for filmmaking and for pushing the envelope and embracing the crazy and the weird and the scary and the strange was something that always brought a certain level of energy to set every day."

The origins of It

Andy Muschietti on set of 'It: Welcome to Derry' with Jovan Adepo and Rudy Mancuso.

Brooke Palmer/HBO

Andy first got on the horn to HBO with the idea that would become *It: Welcome to Derry* after making 2017's *It* movie and its 2019 sequel, *It Chapter Two*. On a call last month in September with her brother, Barbara explains how he felt there was more story to mine from King's magnum opus. While their films, directed by Andy and produced by Barbara, adapted the main events of the 1986 horror novel, there were still all the leftover "interludes." Those chapters chronicled adult Mike Hanlon (played in the second movie by Isaiah Mustafa) amid his efforts to track down the history of It's presence in Derry throughout the decades.

"The interludes were always on my mind," Andy says, "but being movies, there's a limited canvas to lay out all these ideas." At first, he thought about making another feature film using that material. "What if we explore the origin of Pennywise?" he recalls of those conversations. "How did it happen? That would be a great movie, back in 1908 when the traveling circus arrived to town. How did It become Pennywise?"

The plan stalled as the creative team diverged to other projects, but the seed lingered, as if Pennywise itself was luring the Muschiettis back to Derry. Andy considered those Hanlon interludes speculative. The character never came to a definitive conclusion as to why It was there in this specific location. "It's all pieces of a puzzle," he says. "I thought it would be a great idea to grab all those pieces and build the puzzle in front of an audience and engage them in a story that eventually would give more substance to what the movies are."

The pitch to HBO, which the network bought on the spot, was a prequel trilogy. In the world that King built, It emerges every 27 years. So to align with the timeline of the films (the book begins in the 1950s, while the Muschiettis' movies set the scene in the '80s), season 1 of *It: Welcome to Derry* takes place 27 years prior to that first cinematic installment, in 1962. If the show proves successful, proceeding seasons will continue to go back every 27 years.

Jason Fuchs, who worked with the Muschiettis on the second *It* movie and is now the third co-creator with them on *Welcome to Derry*, says the plan is to tell both the origin of the shapeshifting creature that weaponizes and feeds off of fear, as well as the cursed town that serves as It's hunting grounds.

"Derry *is* the entity in many ways," Fuchs says. "Obviously there's a town that is separate, but to me, the stories are totally intertwined. If you think about the mythology in the book, It actually predates Derry. It has been there for millennia. Derry is a more recent innovation. So is there a Derry without It? This season at least has some hints of an explanation, but we want to tell a complete story so that you leave the show with a different understanding of the creature, of the rules of the town, and what motivates It."

Derry in the 1960s

Amanda Christine on 'It: Welcome to Derry'.

Brooke Palmer/HBO

Back on set in the summer of 2024, Barbara offers a tour of the Black Spot, an important location from the interludes of King's novel. "It is, in a way, what became the inspiration of this season," she remarks.

The interior of the set looks like a refurbished military bunker. Remnants from a live band (filmed months earlier) linger atop a makeshift stage, surrounded by bar tables, chairs, and empty glasses of "Air Force Coke" (i.e. Coca Cola plus alcohol). The kitchen is off to the back, a small stovetop space where Dick Hallorann likes to cook up some grub.

The Black Spot is a speakeasy set up by the Black members of the Air Force from the nearby military base to unwind away from the hateful gazes of their white neighbors. It also becomes the site of a horrific tragedy. In one of the more memorable interludes from King's novel that involves Mike's family, we learn how the Maine Legion of White Decency, a violent white supremacist group, burned the Black Spot to the ground while patrons were trapped inside. Off on the sidelines was It, ready to take advantage of the violence.

"We needed an anchor for our first season. Andy decided it was going to be the Black Spot," Barbara says. "It's a reflection of a terrible time in history."

In 1962, Leroy Hanlon (Mike's grandfather), a major in the U.S. Air Force, moves his wife, Charlotte (Taylour Paige), and son, Will (Mike's father), to Derry. A veteran of the Korean War who flew several dangerous missions, he and his buddy, Captain Paulie Russo (Rudy Mancuso), have been assigned to work at the Derry Air Force Base (D.A.F.B.) under General Shaw (James Remar) for a top-secret project.

It's the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a backdrop that inspired the depiction of Paulie being Cuban, Barbara points out. "It was very important to pay attention to the fears of the era," Andy explains. "There was a pretty widespread panic of nuclear attacks and the effects of radiation."

1962 also falls within a prominent decade for the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King, Jr., represented by Paige's Charlotte. The opposite of the by-the-books Leroy, she comes with a background as a social activist fighting for the rights of Black Americans. Brad Caleb Kane, who came aboard as the showrunner of the series with Fuchs, remarks, "We wanted to have a complete story that existed in Derry in 1962, dealing with all of the issues that you would deal with in America but through the lens of a monster movie."

Adepo saw this material as an opportunity to connect with his own father, who, like Leroy, fought in the Korean War and uprooted his family at a young age from Tennessee. The actor embraced "imaginative journaling" to absorb all the stories his dad relayed and pinpoint the mindset of a Black man living in a largely white Maine suburb in the '60s. Fear became crucial to this understanding.

"We all have things that we're afraid of. Some of us may have a stronger tolerance than others. But there is something that's very, very obvious to me what Leroy is most afraid of," the *Babylon* and *3 Body Problem* alum says. "It's not necessarily the town, but there's something very specific to Leroy, and it's much simpler and much different than the rest of the people in the town." Adepo wrote it on the inside cover of his character diary. "I just can't say it," he continues, being mindful of spoilers, "but I do know he eventually does experience that and it's the most terrifying thing in the world to him."

Paige feels the Hanlons are a product of the decade. "In Leroy's perspective, it's a privilege to own something, to have insurance, to provide your child with a better life than your recent ancestors," she muses. "You're taught to put your head down and do the work and climb the ranks and have integrity and loyalty. It kind of is the only way in which a man can grapple with not being acknowledged as an equal to his white counterpart then."

Putting your head down or turning the other cheek seems to be the resting pulse of Derry. Something happens to the residents when It emerges that makes them blind to the horrors happening around them. In one particular scene, Charlotte intervenes when she sees a group of teenage boys beating up another kid. She's quickly caught off guard when the teens and nearby onlookers all stop and stare, confused as to why she would try to prevent this.

Tattooed on Paige's wrist are the words "Fear Not" — which also happens to be one of Barbara's tattoos — but the actress acknowledges this kind of "asleep-ness" is scary. "It's the paradox of being alive, period, on Earth in 1962 and being people of color, but also wanting to live and have dignity," she adds. "What does one do? What are our choices?"

Kimberly Guerrero as Rose on 'It: Welcome to Derry'.

Brooke Palmer/HBO

Kimberly Guerrero (*Reservation Dogs*), a Native actress who studied history at UCLA, plays a character who represents the keeper of the story of Derry in this particular time period. Within the show, there's a prominent Native community that has their own past with It. The Muschiettis partnered with John Bear Mitchell of the Penobscot Nation, a federally recognized tribe in Maine, to bring further authenticity to this depiction.

Guerrero's role, that of Rose, holds a unique position on the show as someone who bears a strong connection to the original *It* storyteller, Stephen King. In the Muschietti's second movie, the horror bestseller cameoed as the antique shop owner visited by James McAvoy's Bill Denbrough. "It's called Secondhand Rose. I am Rose," Guerrero points out.

Through her conversations with the Muschiettis, the actress came up with her own backstory for Rose and the shop, though it's not acknowledged on the show itself. "There's a lot of objects in there that are connected to the people that were taken [by It]," she says. "It's almost this ongoing spiritual work of helping their spirits release. Something that was very important to them is now with me and not just thrown in a junkyard or forgotten up in an attic, but it's cared for."

Putting on her historian cap, Guerrero notes of this period and the way It capitalizes on the unique fears of the age, "It's transitional to the entire country and it's transitional within the world." Aside from the Cuban Missile Crisis and Civil Rights Movement, she names the post-World War II "relief" that set in, as well as the bubblings of the Cold War and the Troubles in Ireland. "Derry is at the very heart of a colonial America," she continues. "It's carrying the weight of that moment of transition where things can go one direction or things can go another direction. So it's an intersection of history, and it's so powerful that it just happens to be the year that Pennywise is going to wake up and feed."

The Stephen King multiverse

Chris Chalk as Dick Hallorann on 'It: Welcome to Derry'.

Brooke Palmer/HBO

When it comes to the Muschiettis' larger plan for this prequel, Derry's role extends well beyond this time period. The town becomes a nexus point that lies at the heart of the larger Stephen King multiverse.

The creators have gone on record talking about the show's connection to another of the author's novels, *The Dark Tower*, while the titular prison of *Shawshank Redemption* also has a presence. Speaking to the latter, Rider calls the infamous prison "the place that somebody goes that they can't ever come back from. It's kind of like *Shutter Island* or Robben Island in real life in South Africa."

Additionally, fans are now speculating about a possible link to *The Mist* after seeing the recent trailers and the suspicious fog rapidly unspooling through Derry's streets. The Muschiettis play coy, though Kane clarifies, "I wouldn't look too deeply into any of the things that you see in the trailer as being things that we lean into too heavily."

One element King readers will undoubtedly take a particular *shine* to is Mr. Hallorann. The character is more widely known for his involvement in *The Shining* as the head chef of the haunted Overlook Hotel who comes with the gift of "the shining," King's phrase for telepathic and clairvoyant abilities. Scatman Crothers portrayed Dick in Stanley Kubrick's classic 1980 film, followed by Carl Lumbly's performance in Mike Flanagan's *Doctor Sleep*, the 2019 adaptation of King's *Shining* sequel.

Dick was briefly mentioned in King's *It*, which lists him as one of the founders of the Black Spot who was present during its burning. This inclusion became another springboard for the Muschiettis to imagine what that character's true involvement in those events could've been.

"The beauty of Dick Hallorann is he is not gonna die in this [show] because he's got to get to the Overlook," Chalk says. "We already know who he is as an older man, where the shine is more controlled. No one knows this dude at this reference point. I got to create what I thought he was based on what was written."

With the Muschiettis, he discussed how this incarnation of Dick isn't the kindest version of himself. "He's caught between a rock and a hard place," Chalk describes. "He's got his own catch-22 situation. Dick will eviscerate anybody to get what he needs at this stage of his life. Not a lot of connections, not a lot of concern for anyone, children included. Just doesn't care. It's the time period. It's already oppressive enough for Black people, so then a Black dude who can read everybody's mind and see terrible things, forget about it! He's really made his world very, very, very small."

When audiences first meet Dick, he's working on the air base in Derry. Chalk says he got caught trying to run a hustle, which is how he landed himself in this spot. "His back is really against the wall," the actor explains. "When we start the show, he does not care about a single individual that he sees, so it's this journey of, 'Will he ever choose anyone over himself?'"

Kane pumps the breaks a bit on the multiverse aspect of this show, saying, "The decision was made early on to tell a story that's specific to Derry in 1962 and not necessarily do a lot of cross-pollination in the King Universe. There is a specific show for that. It's called *Castle Rock*, and you can go watch it."

The connectivity, however, was baked into Andy's original vision for the prequel. The filmmaker, who directs multiple episodes of the series, points to how the *It* novel maintains the perspective of the human characters while hinting at this other supernatural world, such as the inclusion of Maturin, the turtle, an ancient godlike entity mentioned in multiple King books, but especially *It* and *The Dark Tower*. (*It: Welcome to Derry* is decked out with turtle Easter eggs.)

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter***.

"We're still keeping that perspective," Andy says, "but there's a handover to a second season and a third season that will explore more of the other side because it's really connected to the origin of It and the reasons why It is on this plane of existence. The idea, on the longer arc of the series, is to open the door to that bigger, wider mythology to see the iceberg under the water and everything that is not perceivable by humans. I can't tell you too much about seasons 2 and 3, but we are gonna see more of the mythology and the world that is behind the veil."**

One name we haven't heard much about is, oddly enough, Pennywise. Skarsgård returns to the role after portraying the clown in the Muschietti films, though he's not present on set for this specific icy sequence. Barbara shows footage of Skarsgård back in the makeup while playing the tuba (not a bugle) for one shot, while a local fireman they tapped to play his stand-in on set is the one chasing after children with a blood-smeared mouth.

In truth, Skarsgård's Pennywise doesn't enter the action until deeper in the series. The Muschiettis liken the eventual reveal to the shark in *Jaws* in wanting to build that anticipation. "It is a shapeshifting creature, and in the movies there's only so much space to see those non-Pennywise manifestations," Fuchs says.

Andy, however, promises, "If people are watching to be terrified, they will be terrified from the get-go."

Original Article on Source

Source: "AOL TV"

Read More

---

Source: GETTY MAG

Read More >> Full Article on Source: GETTY MAG

#LALifestyle #USCelebrities