Phil Malkin in Welcome to Derry: Character and Fate
Meet Phil Malkin from IT: Welcome to Derry: who plays him, his role in the pilot, his sister Susie and the opening episode twist.
Phil Malkin in Welcome to Derry: Character and Fate
Phil Malkin is one of the children introduced in IT: Welcome to Derry's premiere, played by Jack Molloy Legault. He belongs to the group looking into Matty Clements' disappearance and brings his younger sister Susie into the early investigation. The pilot's movie-theater disaster makes Phil one of the clearest examples of how the show refuses to give its apparent leading children guaranteed protection. Episode 1 spoilers follow.
Phil Malkin's identity and actor
Jack Molloy Legault plays Phil, a local boy who knows Teddy Uris and becomes involved with Lilly Bainbridge's attempts to connect the frightening clues in Derry. His younger sister is Susie Malkin, portrayed by Matilda Legault. Matty Clements is a different child whose disappearance helps set the plot in motion.
Keeping those names separate matters. Some recaps refer to Matty, Teddy and Phil in rapid succession, because the children discuss the same missing-person mystery. Phil is not the missing Matty and should not be described as Teddy's brother. His connection to Susie is the family relationship highlighted in the premiere.
Why Phil investigates with the other children
Unusual experiences have made it difficult for the young witnesses to rely on adults. Rather than dismiss every incident as a nightmare, the children investigate and compare what they know. The search eventually draws them toward the local movie theater, where Ronnie Grogan's connection to a theater employee is useful in reconstructing the night Matty disappeared.
Phil participates because the group expects that evidence might persuade people who have not seen the danger for themselves. That is the pilot's central tension: they want to prove something real is happening, but the act of obtaining proof places them directly in the creature's path.
What happens in the movie theater? — spoilers
The children arrange to investigate at the theater and encounter a horrifying creature associated with the episode's grotesque baby imagery. The attack is sudden and devastating. Phil, Teddy and Susie are killed, while Lilly and Ronnie survive. The sequence is designed to overturn the viewer's assumption that every child introduced as part of a prospective central group must remain safe.
It is possible to describe the consequences clearly without dwelling on graphic injury. The important story information is who survives, why their situation changes, and how this sets a higher level of danger for the rest of the season. The creature's appearance and Cold War-inspired design have their own dedicated explanation.
Why Phil's death matters to the series
The loss removes a character viewers may have expected to follow across eight episodes. It also changes Lilly and Ronnie's understanding of the entity: they no longer possess merely a collection of unsettling anecdotes, but direct experience of an attack that adults are unlikely to accept at face value.
The premiere's twist prevents the series from becoming a simple imitation of the films' group dynamic. In the original movies, friendship among the Losers' Club sustains the story. Here, the writers underline that the 1962 children face a different pattern of danger, including casualties at the very beginning.
Was Phil part of the later Losers' Club?
No. Phil belongs to the earlier 1962 events, not the child group that confronts Pennywise decades afterward in the films. Similarities in the boys' mannerisms or friendships are storytelling echoes, not proof of identical characters. The prequel is designed to expand Derry's history rather than retell the same childhood plot with alternate names.
Frequently asked questions
Who plays Phil Malkin?
Jack Molloy Legault is credited as Phil Malkin.
Is Susie his sister?
Yes. Susie Malkin is Phil's younger sister in the pilot.
Does Phil appear throughout Season 1?
His defining storyline is in the first episode; the pilot attack prevents him from continuing as one of the surviving main children.
Explore related guides
Each of these pages answers a different question about the series:
IT: Welcome to Derry series guide