IT Cast: Who Plays Who in the IT Movies

The IT cast is two ensembles built around one constant, Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise, who appears in both films. It (2017), directed by Andy Muschietti, reached US theaters on September 8, 2017, and follows seven outcasts in Derry, Maine, who call themselves the Losers Club. It Chapter Two (2019), also directed by Muschietti, opened in the US on September 6, 2019, and brings the same characters back as adults to face the clown again.

It (2017): the kids and the clown

Jaeden Martell leads the film as Bill Denbrough, who refuses to accept that his younger brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) is gone after the boy is dragged into a storm drain by a clown. Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer and Wyatt Oleff play his wisecracking friends Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak and Stanley Uris. Sophia Lillis, Jeremy Ray Taylor and Chosen Jacobs complete the group as Beverly Marsh, Ben Hanscom and Mike Hanlon, and the Losers Club explains how the seven fit together. Nicholas Hamilton plays the bully Henry Bowers, with Jake Sim, Logan Thompson and Owen Teague as Belch Huggins, Victor Criss and Patrick Hockstetter.

It Chapter Two (2019): the adults

The younger versions are credited too, with Jaeden Martell, Wyatt Oleff, Jack Dylan Grazer, Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs and Jeremy Ray Taylor all among the top fifteen names in the sequel. For a fuller breakdown of who plays whom, see IT characters, and for the clown himself see Pennywise.

Two television productions sit outside the film cast. The 1990 miniseries and the HBO series IT: Welcome to Derry (2025) each have their own actors, and neither is a film.

Andy Muschietti directed both IT movies, It (2017) and It Chapter Two (2019). Warner Bros. set the September 8, 2017 date for the first film in April 2016 with Muschietti already attached as director, according to TheWrap. Wikipedia also records that Cary Fukunaga left the project before Muschietti took over.

Having one director matters more than it might sound. A cast that changes almost completely between two films needs a single hand to keep the tone of Derry consistent, and Muschietti is the thread that ties the saga together. It (2017) runs 135 minutes, while It Chapter Two runs 169 minutes, and the longer sequel gives him room to move between the adult present and the memories of childhood.

On the music side, Benjamin Wallfisch composed the scores for both films, and the first film has an album titled It: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. The full track and credit run sits on the IT soundtrack page.

Muschietti has also talked about the saga's future. In 2019 he floated a supercut of roughly 390 minutes that would combine both films with unseen footage and new material, which he called only an expression of desire. Warner Bros. had made no decision, and it would be a re-edit rather than a new film. No third feature film has been announced, and the latest status is on the next IT film.

Bill Skarsgård is the only actor who plays the same character at the same age in both films, as Pennywise in It (2017) and It Chapter Two. Every Loser is played by two actors, one for the child and one for the adult, and the casting logic between them is the most interesting part of the saga.

Here is how the pairs line up, based on the credits for both films:

So, which pairing works best? In my opinion, Finn Wolfhard and Bill Hader are the most convincing, because the same mouthy, nervous humor carries across both actors and makes Richie feel like one person who has aged. It could be argued that Sophia Lillis and Jessica Chastain are a close second, since both play Beverly with a guarded edge. Perhaps James McAvoy has the harder job, as Martell's Bill is the quieter of the two and the sequel asks McAvoy to carry more of the emotional weight.

The young actors still come back. Martell, Oleff, Grazer, Wolfhard, Lillis, Jacobs and Taylor are all credited as younger versions of their characters in It Chapter Two, which lets the film revisit childhood without recasting the past. That is why, in my view, the sequel feels like a continuation rather than a reboot.

The 1990 miniseries and IT: Welcome to Derry, the HBO series, are television and sit outside the film cast tables. To follow the films in sequence, start with IT movies in order, and see IT movies for the whole saga.