Bill Skarsgård says Pennywise and Nosferatu voices come out when kids misbehave
Horror star Bill Skarsgård has admitted that his most famous movie voices sometimes escape into family life — especially when his children are misbehaving.
In a recent interview covered by Entertainment Weekly and LADbible, the Swedish actor said his Pennywise persona from the It films can “slip out” at home. He added that his Count Orlok voice from Nosferatu can “pop in” as well, joking that the household ends up with “a whole colorful bunch of schizophrenic daddy.”
Skarsgård framed the comments as dark humor rather than a parenting manifesto. Still, the clip and quotes spread quickly among fans who know him mainly as the dancing clown or the silent vampire — not as a dad doing bedtime discipline.
Why the line resonated
Parents online recognized the joke immediately: actors who spend months in character often find scraps of that persona hard to switch off. For Skarsgård, those scraps happen to be two of modern horror’s most unsettling voices. The contrast between playground chaos and Pennywise cadence is exactly why the story went viral on entertainment sites including UNILAD.
There is no suggestion he intends to frighten his children for real. The point of the anecdote, as reported, is that immersion in a role can leak into ordinary moments — and that he is willing to laugh about it publicly.
A career built on transformation
Beyond It and Nosferatu, Skarsgård has built a résumé of physical and vocal reinvention. Fans who followed the interview saw the parenting aside as another reminder that the man under the makeup is still working out how to leave the characters at the studio door.
For now, the internet has its headline: when the kids act up, Pennywise may answer first — at least according to their father.
Skarsgård has two young children, and the parenting confession lands in a long tradition of actors describing how roles haunt the commute home. Method extremes are usually about staying in character between takes. His version is lighter: a comic admission that the toolbox of voices is hard to leave in the trailer.
Horror fans delighted in the detail because Pennywise is culturally inescapable. Parents who refuse to show It at home suddenly imagined the laugh leaking into a timeout. Skarsgård’s framing — joking, self-aware, a little sheepish — kept the story on the right side of creepy.
As he continues to bounce between prestige horror and mainstream franchises, expect more questions about the line between performance and private life. For one news cycle, at least, the answer was memorable: when the kids push it, Nosferatu might just pop in.
