If you are among those who recognized Wyatt Oleff's face on I Am Not Okay With This, you likely realize that Stanley Barber isn't the first outcast character the actor has played on screen. He's also not the first Stanley that Oleff has portrayed. Though the young actor had been kicking around with small screen and supporting roles for a few years prior, Oleff got his big break when he landed a coveted role in the film adaptation of Stephen King's terrifying killer clown saga It. The other Stanley that Oleff played was young Stanley Uris in the lauded 2017 horror flick – a role he reprised in flashback sequences in the 2019 follow-up It: Chapter Two.
It follows a group of young outcasts in the fictional Derry, Maine who stumble upon an ancient evil being which feeds on fear and the flesh of the town's children. Dubbing themselves "The Loser's Club," the small band of misfits eventually become Derry's only line of defense against the bloodthirsty beast, most often depicted as the vile clown Pennywise. Oleff's Stanley Uris was a key member of that crew, but due to his obsessive-compulsive need for order, he was frequently the most hesitant to admit Pennywise was real.
Stanley ultimately steps up and faces his fears in the harrowing final moments of It, and Oleff beautifully conveys all the introverted and sometimes explosive turmoil that fuels Stanley's emotional journey to that point in the film. In doing so, he also ably established the groundwork for the character's tragic narrative in the second It movie.
