Bill Skarsgård looks like hot Satan on 'Castle Rock'

When Bill Skarsgård was cast in Hulu’s Castle Rock, the joke was that he was going to play evil again. It was an obvious connection, considering that Castle Rock is a Stephen King adaptation like 2017’s It, where Skarsgård played Pennywise/It, a child-munching entity in the shape of a dancing clown.

“At least in this one,” went the thought, “he won’t have to wear all that clown makeup,” like being able to see his face would make his inevitably evil character less frightening. At least in this one he gets to be, you know, hot.

Having seen the first few episodes of Castle Rock, to this I say: yes, Bill Skarsgård is hot, and no, it doesn’t make him any less scary. It makes him more scary. And it’s not his fault.

Anyone can see from the trailer for Castle Rock that Skarsgård's character, credited only as “The Kid” is more than some random guy they found in a hole at Shawshank prison. It’s not a story where a man is bravely rescued and everyone is happy because they saved a valuable human life — no one casts Bill Skarsgård for those kinds of stories. Bill Skarsgård is a two-legged spoiler: whoever he’s playing is a bad dude, the kind who maybe should be left in a cage in the prison from that Morgan Freeman movie.

Bill Skarsgård, by virtue of existing, is a walking special effect. He’s a talented and hardworking actor who happens to look like the form Satan himself would take if he decided once more to prey upon the earthly kingdom of god. The dude has the eyes of a Siberian Husky, the cheekbones of a goddamn Bernini marble, and everything he does in his role in Castle Rock makes people want to run like the absolute Dickens.

He’s scary pretty. Not so pretty it’s scary, but scary because he is pretty. In Castle Rock, The Kid barely speaks but the camera still hovers on his face while people talk around him, catching every lost microexpression and flicker of confusion (and menace?).

He’s meant to look, at different moments, innocent and threatening, with both modes focused on the effect his body has on other characters. There is so much focus on his face, his height, and his broken-looking “I’ve been locked in a water tank for god knows how long” physicality in the show, and every bit of it is terrifying. And then there are his eyes.

Guy’s got a very effective pair of peepers. Skarsgård’s famously large eyes are A Lot in Castle Rock, so much so that the pilot episode times its first jump scare to the first time the audience sees them. Just his eyes! He’s not even doing anything, he’s just Bill Skarsgård and he has eyes. Damn, this guy is good.

There must be a certain comfort in being a character actor. They’re known for being “the guy who does the thing” and when a role comes up that needs the thing they’re the first person on a director’s mind. Bill Skarsgård’s thing, insofar as his career in America, is being so handsome in such a specific way that everyone is afraid of him. Castle Rock knows this, Castle Rock uses this, and in the context of the show it works very well.

Is he just some guy in a cage? Is he literally Satan? Who knows, nobody can take their eyes off him. That’s the point.

For the record, Bill Skarsgård is reportedly a very nice man.