By Steve Newton
Life is full of surprises–and sometimes they’re good.
Like what happened today, for instance.
I was playing that old cassette tape I used to record my exclusive Fangoria interview with Tim Curry on the Vancouver set of Stephen King’s It back in 1990. I thought that all I had on there was my 20-minute conversation with Curry while he took a lunch break in full Pennywise makeup, daintily snacking on tomato and cream cheese sandwiches (no crusts).
But after I heard myself thanking Curry and turning the tape deck off back in 1990, before I could hit the STOP button today I heard myself start another interview by asking somebody: “So have you ever wanted to do a clown?”
It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I was putting that question to makeup-FX artist Bart Mixon, who had created the legendary Pennywise look for Tim Curry’s character. I knew I’d interviewed Mixon the same day I’d hung out with Curry in Stanley Park, but didn’t realize I still had any audio of it.
So for all you Stephen King fanatics and It freaks who can’t get enough Pennywise, here’s a little excerpt from that rediscovered chat, in which Mixon offers some interesting revelations about how he approached the job.
The woman heard making the odd comment, like “You never wanted to?” and “Not evil enough for you guys” is the unit publicist who showed me around the set that day, but I can’t for the life of me remember her name. It was 1990, after all. (This portion of the interview gets cut off when she announces “Bart, we’ve got a couch” as some crew guys carry in a piece of furniture, leading Mixon to warn “Careful!” Those makeup-FX guys are pretty protective of their stuff.)
Have a listen: (you might need to crank the volume a bit)