When auditioning to play a DC villain whose body is transformed into clay, and all the skin-melting that involves, you’ve got to embrace that process right from the get-go, including the audition.
‘Listen, acting sort of shakes hand with being like the most ridiculous thing sometimes, so you kind of have to leave your dignity at the door,’ Tom Rhys Harries tells Metro. ‘You gotta go for it, man!’ he adds with a laugh.
Despite this, the Welsh rising star, whose most prominent parts before this were in that other film based on The Odyssey – 2024’s The Return with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche – and TV drama The Light in the Hall, recalls his casting being a ‘fairly standard process’ even if it was for the big breakthrough role of his career.
‘I’m not very woo-woo, but I remember having a moment, really early on, of going, “That feels like something.” And I didn’t know any of the details of the project, I just knew there was a script called Clayface.’
From a read-through with casting director Lucy Bevan it was next a coffee in Barnes with director James Watkins, where they ‘just clicked’ – almost sounding like a date – with Rhys Harries recalling that it felt like there was ‘very little resistance to an entry point to it’.
Watching the film, you can see why the 36-year-old was an easy choice to play Matt Hagen, the newly created human alter-ego for Clayface, who starts the film as a hot rising star in Hollywood before a bad decision on a night out leaves him disfigured and his career in ruins. With the movie a villain origin story, his performance moves seamlessly to this climax from the initially sympathetic Matt we meet.
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Rhys Harries describes Clayface as like ‘a Greek tragedy in three parts’, with its horror identity namely coming ‘from the psychological breakdown of a man’.
‘It’s ripe for puns, talking about Clayface, because you’ll have terms like ‘getting under the skin of a character’,’ he wryly acknowledges.
Given the character it’s dealing with, the movie also revels in the body horror aspects, which its star describes as ‘intense’, with faces being ripped, tongues being torn out and eyelids fusing together – only to be hacked apart desperately with nail scissors.
Acting sort of shakes hand with being the most ridiculous thing sometimes
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‘I think horror is something that is best experienced as a communal experience, because it elicits, if it’s done properly, a visceral, guttural reaction within people… Also, if you go to the cinema and it gets a bit too heavy, you can always reserve the right to cover your eyes,’ the actor suggests.
For him, one of the seminal moments of the movie is the moment you see Hagen as Clayface – glimpsed briefly in the trailer – lying in the bath, nearly smothered by his own melted skin.
‘One of the first things I did after getting cast was fly over to LA and the Legacy Effects studios, who design all the different prosthetics. That image of him melting into the bathtub has been part of this from the very beginning; I saw a tiny little model me melted in a bathtub. That is just a really powerful image.’
Clayface is also, according to Rhys Harries, ‘as practical as you can conceive, whilst propping it up with as little visual effects as possible’. He’s happy with that decision, despite it leading to a tiny little hole with a breathing straw for that particular make-up. ‘There were long discussions about the safety of that,’ he reveals – although luckily nothing ever tipped over into taking all day.
‘I know Jacob Elordi claims that they spent about 12 hours a day doing Frankenstein prosthetics. I’m intrigued as to how they had any time left over to shoot when they did that! The maximum we spent on any look was about four hours.’
‘I’ve got ADHD and so that offers up a set of challenges for everybody involved!,’ he laughs. ‘But I found myself zoning out and then – because there are so many different looks – I’d be surprised every day by what [prosthetic make-up artists] Adrian [Rigby] and Dixie [George] had done to me.’
Clayface is the first time audiences see Gotham as conceived as part of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Universe, rebooted with 2025’s Superman. Matt is from the roughest part, the Narrows.
‘Against all odds, he’s managed to make a life for himself,’ says Rhys Harries. ‘And those same tools and strength of character that he showed to be able to build a life from nothing, it’s the same kind of psychology that he applies to seeking vengeance and retribution on the people that have wronged him.’
Considering Matt’s journey to villainhood, he adds: ‘I’m really intrigued to see what the audience thinks and whether or not they deem his actions justified.’
Clayface could demolish Batman
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Many are hoping for a crossover with other DC characters in the movie, but take this as your warning that Robert Pattinson’s Batman exists in DC Elseworlds, a separate entity. But Rhys Harries is confident of how things will go down when Clayface does come up against a worthy adversary though.
‘I think Clayface could demolish Batman. I think, ultimately, when Matt gets a hold of his powers, he is so powerful that he could take on anybody – Batman, Superman… You name it!’ Rhys Harries offers.
Clayface is the next DCU film to hit cinemas after Supergirl this summer, which made an underwhelming $126.4 million (£94.4m) and saw Safran publicly acknowledge it ‘didn’t meet our box office expectations’. Surely that’s added pressure on Clayface to succeed.
Rhys Harries chooses his words carefully, initially leading with being ‘really proud’ of the film.
‘Making a good feature film is really, really difficult. It’s a miracle that any film is made and I’m a part of a massive group of people that have come together. The story and the script are brilliant and dynamic and interesting, and it’s kind of timeless in its structure and some of the themes that it touches on.’
But ultimately, it’s out of their hands.
‘You hand it over to an audience and the audience gets to decide whether it’s something that they engage with. But I’m excited about being a part of the process. It’s ready to hand over. And then it doesn’t belong to me anymore, it doesn’t belong to Watkins – it’s the audience’s to take ownership over.’
Clayface is in cinemas now.