Move over, Pennywise: 'It Chapter Two' cast member claims to have once been a (stripper?!) clown

Kevin Polowy
Updated

The cast of It Chapter Two ain't afraid of no clowns.

While we're certainly not alone in our phobia of the creepy party performers, the stars of the new sequel to the Stephen King-based horror phenomenon (featuring perhaps the scariest of all clowns in the child-killing Pennywise) are nearly unanimous.

"Clowns don't scare me," Jessica Chastain insisted (watch above).

"I'm not afraid of clowns," said Bill Hader.

"I was never scared of them, but I always thought they were a little grubby and dirty," opined James McAvoy. "Grown men covering their faces up with either a mask or paint, I'm like, 'Come on, man.'"

You get the gist.

But one star of Chapter Two — which finds the now grown-up Loser's Club reuniting in small-town Derry, Maine, nearly three decades after the events of It (2017) — has an especially good reason not to fear clowns. Jay Ryan used to be one.

"I did, a very long time ago," the New Zealand native 'fessed up after Chastain outed him. "It was one of my first jobs out of school."

"Stripping," Chastain added. "No, no, really. With the red nose."

"I was a clown stripper," Ryan said. "So the nose would come off first. Then the shirt. Then the pants. And I'd have a little flower that would squirt water at the end. … I met a lot of bachelorette parties."

We're pretty sure they're kidding. Pretty sure. But you never know.

It Chapter Two opens Friday. Watch the trailer:

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