Bill Skarsgard to Play Shawshank Prisoner in Hulu’s ‘Castle Rock’

Actor Bill Skarsgard made a huge splash in the world of Stephen King last month with his performance as Pennywise in IT. In next year’s Hulu series Castle Rock, the actor could continue building his Stephen King-centric fanbase, as it’s been revealed Skarsgard will play a prisoner of the iconic Shawshank correctional facility.

Flickering Myth reported the details about the character, saying, “Instead of playing a killer clown as he did in IT, this time around Skarsgard portrays a prisoner at Shawshank, who is directly connected with André Holland’s Henry Deaver, a death-row attorney.”

When fans heard that Skarsgard was going to be starring in the series, they couldn’t help but assume that he could play a character somehow connected to Pennywise, in one way or another. If the above information doesn’t clarify things enough, the actor himself made sure to draw the distinction.

“The only thing I want to stress is that [Castle Rock is] a completely separate thing than Pennywise and IT,” Skarsgard told Rotten Tomatoes. “The world is brand new. It’s Stephen King’s universe…these are places we’ve been familiarized with through his work. But the show is an original story in that world. The character is a lot of fun. He’s — it’s a really weird one. [He’s] so different from Pennywise. I’m using a completely different tool set here for this one.”

Unlike many adaptations of Stephen King’s work, this 10-episode series combines various elements from multiple properties to create an all-new narrative.

The series combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King’s best-loved works, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland. The fictional Maine town of Castle Rock has figured prominently in King’s literary career: Cujo, The Dark Half, IT and Needful Things, as well as novella The Body and numerous short stories such as Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemptionare either set there or contain references to Castle Rock. Castle Rock is an original suspense/thriller — a first-of-its-kind reimagining that explores the themes and worlds uniting the entire King canon, while brushing up against some of his most iconic and beloved stories.

Castle Rock will premiere on Hulu sometime next year.

[H/T Flickering Myth]