Pennywise actor Bill Skarsgård has revealed his take on the evil clown's ability to time-travel in Stephen King spin-off It: Welcome to Derry, and it sounds super complicated.
At the end of It: Welcome to Derry season 1, we learn that despite the season being set 27 years after the first It movie and 54 years before It: Chapter 2, Pennywise has already experienced everything that happened in 1989 and 2016, despite currently being in 1962. He is targeting the kids in the series so that those in the Losers Club are never born and will not be able to kill him in the future. With this, it seems as though time moves in a completely different direction for the evil entity, or so we thought.
"I thought that was an interesting thing that the character is kind of going in two different directions," said Skarsgård in an interview from 2025 that has since made its way onto Twitter, before questioning, "But what's time to something that is not part of this dimension?" If what Skarsgård is saying is that Pennywise isn't affected by time at all, then the clown either experiences time on a constant loop or can bounce from era to era as he pleases.
"It's so abstract this transdimensional evil being thing with a spider and a turtle or whatever. It is really out there. From reading the book, you can interpret it a thousand different ways," added the star. Featured in several King novels, the turtle Maturin is It's nemesis and an ancient cosmic being who comes from a place before time started. However, despite King touching on the time travel issue in his works, he never fully explains it. "I'm pretty sure Stephen King doesn't really know," said Skarsgård.
If Pennywise is from the same place as Maturin, that explains why he isn't affected by our time constraints. That all sounds very confusing, but there's no need to worry yourself over it, as Skarsgård says the series isn't really about that. "It's kind of this little bookend thing how we ended it," added the star. "I'm not quite sure where we're going with it, but there's something fun to explore that Pennywise might be going backwards, but it's forwards for him just as it is for the audience who are."
Fans will continue to experience It director Andy Muschietti's series backwards as the showrunner plans to make two more seasons of It: Welcome to Derry, with It: Welcome to Derry season 2 jumping back to 1935, and season 3 set in 1908.
It: Welcome to Derry season 1 is available to stream on HBO in the US and Now in the UK. For more, check out our guide to It: Welcome to Derry Easter eggs and cameos, and keep up with upcoming Stephen King movies and shows heading your way.
