Bill Skarsgård's Nosferatu vs. Pennywise Performances: Which Is Better?

Bill Skarsgård has become a big name in the horror genre by playing some truly iconic villains, such as It’s Pennywise and Nosferatu’s Count Orlok, and while both are great performances, only one can win this battle. Bill Skarsgård’s acting career began in the 2000s with various Swedish projects, but his breakout role arrived in 2017 when he was cast as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in Andy Muschiett’s It. Although Skarsgård had already starred in the horror TV series Hemlock Grove in 2013, Pennywise made him a widely known name in the horror genre.

Skarsgård reprised his role of Pennywise in 2019 in the sequel It Chapter Two, and before that, he starred in the black comedy horror movie Villains. In 2022, Skarsgård returned to the horror genre in Barbarian, though not as a villain, and in 2024, he starred in two very different horror movies: The Crow and Nosferatu. The latter earned Skarsgård a lot of praise for his performance as Count Orlok, and that has made way for a big question: which is Skarsgård’s best horror role between Pennywise and Count Orlok?

Nosferatu’s Count Orlok vs. It’s Pennywise: Which Bill Skarsgård Performance Is Scarier

One Is A Rotten Vampire, The Other A Shapeshifting Creature

Based on Stephen King’s 1986 novel of the same name, It takes the audience to 1989 to meet Bill Denbrough and his friends Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Stanley Uris, Ben Hanscom, and Beverly Marsh, who call themselves the “Losers Club.” The Losers live in Derry, Maine, where horrible things happen every 27 years as an evil shapeshifting creature (that the Losers call “It”) awakens to feed from the fear of its targets. After Bill’s younger brother, Georgie, is killed by this creature in the shape of Pennywise, the Losers come face to face with this creature.

It Chapter Two reunites with the Losers 27 years after the events of the first movie, as the now adult Losers return to Derry to confront It one last time and defeat the creature once and for all. Now, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu takes viewers to the early 1880s to meet Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), a young woman haunted by a mysterious presence after, when she was a young girl, she pleaded for a supernatural being to ease her loneliness. When her husband, Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), travels to Transylvania for work, he meets the terrifying Count Orlok, who hides a disturbing secret.

Skarsgård’s performance makes Orlok even scarier, as he moves slowly, his voice is very deep, and his overall presence is quite commanding.

What makes Count Orlok terrifying is the whole mystery around him, as Eggers made sure to keep the big reveal of his full appearance until much later in the first act. When the moment finally arrives, it’s a pretty scary one, as, up to that point, Orlok had been hidden in the shadows, with only his hands being shown or close-ups of his eyes. Skarsgård’s performance makes Orlok even scarier, as he moves slowly, his voice is very deep, and his overall presence is quite commanding.

The Losers never know when Pennywise is going to show up, nor if what they see is real or not, making Pennywise unpredictable and more terrifying.

In both It movies, Pennywise terrorizes not just the Losers but other Derry residents, and what it does with most, like with Georgie, is winning their trust so it can then attack. The Losers never know when Pennywise is going to show up, nor if what they see is real or not, making Pennywise unpredictable and more terrifying. Both Orlok and Pennywise are disturbing and threatening in their own way, but Skarsgård’s performance as Pennywise is scarier.

Count Orlok vs. Pennywise: Which Bill Skarsgård Character Has A Better Design

Both Made Bill Skarsgård Unrecognizable

One element that has also made most of Bill Skarsgård’s horror characters stand out is the use of prosthetics and makeup that make him unrecognizable. Pennywise’s design in Muschietti’s It is closer to King’s description of the horrifying clown in the book, but still with a modern touch to make him different from Tim Curry’s 1990 version. The style of Skarsgård’s Pennywise costume is reminiscent of 1920s clowns, but it’s the makeup that truly builds the character.

Skarsgård’s facial expressions and body movements elevate Pennywise and make it extra terrifying.

The white makeup on Pennywise’s forehead is cracked, and he has a red-painted nose, red lips, and lines that go from the corners of his lips all the way to above his eyebrows, creating a disturbing, distorted smile. Of course, Skarsgård’s facial expressions and body movements elevate the character and make it extra terrifying, so it all combines to bring one of Stephen King’s scariest villains to life.

Skarsgård’s Count Orlok, on the other hand, is an entirely different thing. Orlok is a vampire, but not the physically attractive type. Before Nosferatu’s release, Eggers spoke about his desire to make vampires scary again through Orlok, and he definitely achieved that. Orlok is, as accurately described by Eggers, a walking corpse, with rotten skin, missing skin on different parts of his body, unusually large fingers and nails, and he’s very thin and tall, making him a lot more threatening and scary. Clowns can be scary, but Orlok’s design is scarier, more elaborate, and better.

Count Orlok vs. Pennywise: Which Character Bill Skarsgård Gets More Screentime As

They Didn’t Get Enough Screen Time

A big similarity, that ends up being a strength for both, is that Count Orlok and Pennywise don’t get a lot of screen time. According to Screen Time Central’s Matthew Stewart on Twitter/X, Pennywise appears for a total of 11 minutes and 17 seconds in It, and 13 minutes and 29 seconds in It Chapter Two. At the time of writing, there’s no official data on Orlok’s total screen time in Nosferatu, but it’s not much, and he’s hidden in the shadows throughout most of that time.

Reduced screen time works for both characters as they are supposed to be lurking presences, so the focus is on how this affects their victims at a psychological level, rather than having them literally chasing them the whole time (like in slasher movies). However, the way Pennywise and Orlok use their little screen time is different: Orlok lurks in the shadows before attacking, while Pennywise is more direct in how it tortures its targets.

Sorry Count Orlok, But Pennywise Is Bill Skarsgård’s Better Performance

Sorry Orlok, But The Clown Wins This Battle

Both Count Orlok and Pennywise are terrifying characters through which Bill Skarsgård was able to show his acting range – but in a battle, only one can be the winner. Neither is a character one would like to encounter in any scenario, but Orlok is somewhat easier to defeat than Pennywise, and his methods aren’t as horrible and torturing as those of Pennywise. It takes the shape of its victim’s deepest fear and tortures them through that, as fear is what makes the meat look tastier (according to the creature itself in the book).

There’s a lot of unpredictability in Pennywise, too, and Skarsgård perfectly brought this into his performance.

Pennywise, in particular, can be equal parts charming and terrifying when approaching his victims – look no further than how he lured Georgie and Victoria into its trap. There’s a lot of unpredictability in Pennywise, too, and Skarsgård perfectly brought this into his performance, making him even scarier. Count Orlok and Pennywise are two different villains and thus different Bill Skarsgård performances, and both were key to the success of their respective movies.