Considering he’s best known for donning clown makeup as Pennywise in It, and smile makeup as Eric Draven in The Crow remake, it might come as a surprise that the DC character Bill Skarsgård most wanted to play isn’t the Joker. Not that he wouldn’t be great as a different kind of scary clown, mind you. But what he wanted to potentially tackle with his It director Andy Muschietti was a far more potentially controversial call. Skarsgard has shown off a muscular, heroic physique in movies like The Crow and Boy Kills World, yet the role he wanted wouldn’t actually require any of that.
Appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz, he said the one he wanted was John Constantine. Smoking, drinking occult investigator John Constantine, who hides whatever physique he has under a trenchcoat, generally. Also, and this is very important to fans, he’s English. Skarsgård is not, though he has a versatile voice.
There’s precedent for the star of the Hellblazer comics to be played by an American, of course, and it’s Keanu Reeves in Francis Lawrence’s Constantine. That was a. super-controversial call at the time, due to Reeves’ lack of vocal versatility, American-ness, and the general sense that Hollywood just didn’t understand superheroes. Over time, however, the movie’s reputation has improved, as Reeves as become more beloved, and the multiverse has allowed viewers to compartmentalize that it depicted an alternate-universe Constantine compared to the comics. Reeves and Lawrence even periodically talk about a sequel. On TV, however, Matt Ryan took on the role and played it more comic-accurately, generally pleasing DC and Vertigo fans right out of the gate.
When Horowitz asked if he was potentially kicking Reeves out, Skarsgård pleaded ignorance as to whether or not the previous star was still interested. “I just thought that it was, like, blending truly visual horror and superhero…that’s cool,” he added. They did not address whether or not he would be right for the role, though it’s hard to deny that the director of It would work for that vibe. Muschietti’s major superhero movie, The Flash, is more controversial, for some reasons that were beyond his control. However, it’s worth noting that within that movie, he gave us a blue-and-gray suited Batman busting criminals in broad daylight, and made it work — something we’ve only ever seen played for comedy in live-action previously. So his doing a more Bat-family oriented Batman seems like a decent match too. Meanwhile, DC Studios apparently has a Constantine movie in very early development.
Swamp Thing, however, is more imminent on the DC Studios movie docket, and Constantine could easily be introduced in that movie first, giving his comics history. James Mangold is set to direct, but no doubt he will hear of this particular actor’s interest. Then the question becomes whether or not Skarsgård would want to do it without Muschietti, and whether Mangold would want a non-British actor. There’s also some weirdness about the rights — Netflix’s The Sandman series gender-flipped the character to Joanna because of this, though TV/streaming rights work differently from movies.
Would you want to see Bill Skarsgård as John Constantine? If so, should he do an English accent, or play him as American as Reeves? Blaze down to comments and give us hell with your hot takes.
