PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Before he ever stepped foot in Derry, Miles Ekhardt was an avid theater kid. With a stint as the frail yet faithful Tiny Tim in a touring production of A Christmas Carol marking his breakout performance, he’s no stranger to acting opposite the central villain of a story. But in HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry, Ekhardt’s character isn’t facing a miserly old man who eventually sees the light. This time, he’s doomed to rot in the sewers of Maine as one Pennywise’s (Bill Skarsgård, Nosferatu 2024) newest victims.
A prequel to the blockbuster It films of 2017 and 2019 that expands on Stephen King’s iconic 1986 novel, IT: Welcome to Derry sees Ekhardt portray Matty Clements — a young runaway who flees his abusive home, only to be taken in by a sinister family of four…and experience the clown-induced darkness of Derry firsthand.
On the heels of the show’s inaugural season, PopHorror caught up with Ekhardt, who reflects on Matty’s tragic and terrifying arc, finding his footing in one of the most well-known horror franchises of all time, transitioning from stage to screen and how — sometimes — he still feels like the same theater kid figuring things out along the way.
PopHorror: IT: Welcome to Derry is one of your first on-screen projects. How did this opportunity come about? And what made you want to say yes to taking on this role?
Miles Ekhardt: This is the second project I’ve done so far. I actually was a little hesitant to accept it at first. I didn’t know much about it. I didn’t really know it was It. They only introduced it as Fairview, not Welcome to Derry. I had a hunch what IP it was though. And also, until this role, I hadn’t accepted horror because historically, I have not liked this genre very much. I didn’t really get it, and I feared having a bad experience filming it and having to act out all that fear. But I was given the offer and then the strike happened, and so I had an extra six months to think about it. My view on it changed a lot. I got exposed to a lot more horror, especially when I got COVID at one point and watched most of Stranger Things. I’ve seen some full horror movies now and I have more of an appreciation for the genre. So when the strike was over and they actually offered the role for real this time, I was much happier to accept it.
PopHorror: When the strike happened, had you filmed anything at that point?
Miles Ekhardt: I was offered the role and they were going to send me the contract, and the day that they would have sent it, these strikes started. So all of that was put off until after the strike. I had to refilm and make sure I was still a good enough age. I had aged out of it a little, but they used some magic pitching to get my voice back up.
PopHorror: What attracted you to the character of Matty? From the beginning, we see that he has a lot going on. He’s running away from home, he’s dependent on his pacifier. What was your process of getting into his mindset?
Miles Ekhardt: The character of Matty changed a good bit during the process. He was originally written as trying to be cooler, trying to be more adult. And that characterization changed by the time we were actually filming and he became what he is now, where he is very much pulling into the youth of him and still clinging to the past. So I had to figure out a little on the fly what was really going on with that character. But a lot of that came from discussions with [director] Andy Muschietti and what his vision for Matty was, who this little character is. That’s where I got a lot of his backstory. He’s so afraid of his father because he essentially had a genuine threat of dying at his home. It was great to have that backstory that I could look back on when acting the scene.
PopHorror: Before Welcome to Derry, you were in a touring production of A Christmas Carol. Who did you play? And did that experience prepare you at all for this project?
Miles Ekhardt: I played Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol. I don’t know if that really influenced my acting abilities here, but I do find it funny that I have been cast in a very similar role now. I’ve gone from this little innocent kid who might die to make Scrooge change his ways, to now this little innocent kid who has probably died to make everyone get all sad and do all these things. I’m never escaping that role. [laughs]
PopHorror: Are you still doing stage? Or are you more focused on TV work now?
Miles Ekhardt: I definitely do stage, but I prefer TV. I prefer the more dramatic, naturalistic aspect. There’s a lot deeper technique that you can do on camera, but for now, I get a lot more opportunities for stage. I don’t have to go through the full audition process. I can do stuff at my high school, so I’ve continued to do that.
PopHorror: I’d love to hear your thoughts on that insane opening scene in Welcome to Derry, when you’re trapped in the car with that family. What do you remember most about filming that day?
Miles Ekhardt: The part I remember most is the time between the takes, when it’s just me and the family in the car. There are actors who commit to method acting. I just carry out the tiniest little hint of method acting with me, but between takes, I’m still pretty deeply out of character. So we had all of these different jokes going around and it was a very fun time.
PopHorror: Later in the season, Matty returns after months of missing. Except we learn that it’s not really him… What was it like embodying that darker version of the character?
Miles Ekhardt: I love getting to play this character that has all of these very visceral emotional moments. But also, every once in a while, I get a scene where I get to be this demonic, interdimensional fear entity, and yet it’s like It’s take on a person. I really liked playing the more Pennywise-y scenes. There initially wasn’t much of a change. A lot of it was, he’s a really good impersonator of everyone. But then we added these tiny little changes. Like during the anchor lifeboat scene, where they’re deciding whether they should go into the sewers, the real Matty would really, really not want to do that with every ounce of his body. He’s not brave. He has a little bit of bravery, but nowhere near enough to go back into the sewers.
If he were really in that scene, he would have said he was an anchor. But Pennywise, even though he’s trying to play that, he also really wants all these people to go into the sewers so he can go and eat them. So there are these tensions a little bit within the character in that scene. There’s these little micro expressions that come from It, those two fighting forces reacting to everything, of really not wanting to go there, but just enough that he still really needs them to go down there.
PopHorror: You mentioned the micro expressions. Did you watch the It movies to prepare for these scenes, or did you go in wanting to do your own thing?
Miles Ekhardt: I definitely watched the first two Its, partially so I could have a better grasp of the tone and what the world is that I’m getting into here. I’ve also read the original novel. Holy crap, there’s a lot that goes on in there. Stephen King, he’s a very out there writer in parts. He keeps cooking stuff up. I haven’t seen the original mini series, but I was able to get a sense of what these child performances are like and what there is out there to be afraid of with Pennywise.
PopHorror: You have a really chilling scene in the sewers, when you start to sing and you slowly morph into Pennywise. That’s basically the big reveal of him in the show. What was it like filming that moment?
Miles Ekhardt: That was a very fun scene to film because it was where I get to work with Bill Skarsgård. It was the one holdover from the original movie, and I’ve seen him on screen and just know of him culturally. That’s one of the moments that I could actually connect to the surrealness of being there. That’s actually Pennywise in all his fame standing there. But I really liked filming that because, on my side, I just had to keep on going around and progressively doing more and more of the Pennywise impression, doing more and more of that character and really getting into embodying that so that they can make that transition work. I really liked that step. And Pennywise is an absurdly crazy, out there character to try and portray, so that was one of my favorite parts to film.
PopHorror: Aside from that scene, were you able to work with Bill a lot on set? If so, what was that experience like?
Miles Ekhardt: Bill was generally pretty separated from the cast. He was doing a lot of his own thing. I think part of that was just his process and what they were doing to get his performance, and also to get reactions out of the kids when they were there. But I did talk with him for a bit before we filmed that scene just so we could coordinate together how we were going to make all that work. He’s very in the zone for what his character is, how It would be behaving in all these situations and what’s really going on internally to make all that happen. That’s the main impression I got from talking to him.
PopHorror: There’s one more scene I’d love to hear your thoughts on. When the kids are in the theater watching The Music Man, Matty appears in the film and does that creepy Pennywise smile. Was that you or special effects?
Miles Ekhardt: That was sadly all CGI. I did not do that. I can barely get a regular smile to look convincing on camera. [laughs] I cannot get the crazy, twisted Pennywise smile.
PopHorror: You posted a picture on Instagram posing with your dead body prop from the set. Was that unnerving seeing that, or was it pretty cool?
Miles Ekhardt: I think if the props themselves had looked a little closer to me, that would have been more unnerving. But the props were more stand-ins and they did all their magic VFX, superimposing stuff to make it more like us in the final cut. So I didn’t get too spooked out by the mannequin of me. It was pretty easy for me to say, “Oh, that’s its own guy floating around the bottom, living his own life.”
PopHorror: Welcome to Derry has a very kid- and teen-heavy cast, much like the movies and even Stranger Things. What was the energy like on set?
Miles Ekhardt: A lot of us were middle and high school range. There was a lot of that sort of childish hijinks. I was surprised by how much we were allowed to do. Me, Jack [Molloy Legault, Interstellar Ella 2022] and Mikkal [Karim-Fidler, Boy in the Walls 2023] would go into all these sets and film ourselves doing all these things, and just getting to really live on this film set. I loved my time there. All the child actors were very close to each other. We still have our group chat. We’d hang out outside of actually filming scenes together. It was a great vibe.
PopHorror: Have you been watching the show as it airs on HBO each week? And what’s the response been from your family, friends and even just the public on social media?
Milkes Ekhardt: Yes, I’ve been watching with friends of mine every time they air. I was surprised — there have been some pretty visceral and very positive reactions for it. I’m a very new actor and I had a little bit of that imposter syndrome of working on a film set. Everyone else there is on their sixth or eighth movie or whatever. They’ve all been through this before and I still feel like just the theater kid who also happens to be here. And also, everyone’s got this very refined acting style and I’m kind of developing how I’m acting as it goes along and working with an acting coach. So I was surprised by how well received the performances were. Well, the other children I was expecting, but I had doubt in my own performance for that character. I was surprised to have not heard too many bad things about it. Maybe people are just very sensitive about my feelings. [laughs]
PopHorror: Looking ahead, are there any other projects on the horizon?
Miles Ekhardt: None yet, still auditioning away. Maybe someday I’ll find something that wants to cast me.
PopHorror: Do you have a dream role or genre that you’d love to do someday?
Miles Ekhardt: I want to work in something more comedic, just to make sure I’m capable of doing broader acting. I don’t want to get fully typecast into doing one role over and over. But then again, I really want to work in one of these more dramatic projects again. You have to get so precise with all the performances, and so you really do get into that character. You keep doing these takes and you get into who that character is, and I love the process of it. Some of that can get lost if you’re on a sitcom. What I’d really like to do is just get back into another cinematic drama of some sort. Maybe not horror, but maybe.
PopHorror: Do you have a favorite actor or film that inspires you?
Miles Ekhardt: I don’t know if there’s a particular person that comes to mind. But I have some recency bias because I just finished Stranger Things Season 5, the first four episodes that dropped. I admire Vecna’s [Jamie Campbell Bower, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 2007] actor a lot. There’s a Broadway show for that, which has someone playing the young version. Every part of that character, I admire the actors for.
PopHorror: Maybe you can play young Vecna someday!
Miles Ekhardt: Maybe!
Thanks for speaking with us, Miles! IT: Welcome to Derry Season 1 is available for streaming on HBO Max.
Professional photos by H | A Photography.
