'It: Chapter 2' star Teach Grant reveals how director Andrés Muschietti shot 'eight different versions of everything' to make the sequel different
While the first remake of the iconic Stephen King horror 'It' has been dubbed as one of the finest book-to-film adaptation of the author's works, the creators of the film franchise are leaving no stones unturned when it comes to getting the upcoming sequel as close to perfection s possible. And for that, retakes and enacting about eight versions of the same scenes before making the final cut became a common thing during filming.
Actor Teach Grant, who plays the role of the grown-up version of the town bully, Henry Bowers claims that even though a little challenging at first, reshooting the several different versions and improvisations of the same scene ended up being quite fun. While the first part saw Henry bullying the Losers Club, in the sequel, with a significant time leap, the older Henry teams up with Pennywise, the clown, to terrorize the Losers Club even as adults. "Once we got going, it was just it was challenging. It was fun. It was engaging it kept me light on my toes because as you said Andy (Andrés Muschietti, director) just throws you option after option after option, so I have no idea what my arc is going to look like," Grant teased in an exclusive interview with MEA Worldwide (MEAWW.)
Muschietti, who helmed the first remake in the franchise too, didn't want to leave anything out while getting the story impeccably on screen, and that shows in his direction, Grant will like us to believe. "Usually you plan your trajectory and you know where you're going to start, your middle stanza, and where it's going to end. But we did eight different versions of everything and Andy would be like I want to try this, I want to try that, it might not work, but let's do it anyway," Grant says about Muschietti's approach to bring the rest of the Stephen King story to life. He also noted how "Usually as an actor, you want to control a bit, but there was something about Andy when I met him. We just got talking and I just surrendered. So I'm going to watch this movie and I'm going to be surprised."
The erratic switches in the plot is what makes the characters so exciting, yet intriguing to watch in the final cut, Grant says, especially in case of his, as Muschietti's approach to the plot "makes Henry kind of a swing character. Andy can do what he needs to do with the character at any given time depending on what it needs tone-wise. Be it a happy Henry Bowers or a completely broken down Henry Bowers. He's got it pretty much for any given moment."
Grant notes that this is also what "kept every take fresh because you're not trying to replicate based on coverage where you lock it, master it like we're going to do it like this or a variation of this for the next 12 hours. It didn't matter if we were deep in the day - if new ideas came out, whether his or mine, we just went with it. It was atypical but absolutely refreshing."
'It: Chapter 2' premieres worldwide this Friday, September 6.
