Tom Rhys Harries on Clayface: “It’s such fertile psychological ground"

Given that our fascination with the extended Batman universe shows no signs of slowing, it’s little surprise that the rogues gallery of Gotham villains has grown to ever greater prominence. Joaquin Phoenix has memorably portrayed the Joker in a brace of Todd Phillips movies, while Colin Farrell has earned considerable acclaim for his portrayal of the titular character in HBO’s series The Penguin.

Now it’s the turn of Clayface, who’s the protagonist of a brilliantly atmospheric new body horror film. The story initially focuses on rising movie star Matt Hagen, played by Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries, who attempts to have his looks restored after being brutally disfigured by a gangster.

However, having volunteered himself as a test subject for fringe scientist Dr Caitlin Corr (Naomi Ackie), Hagen experiences horrifying side effects that transform his body into living clay. Adding to the intrigue, meanwhile, is John Borelli (Max Minghella), a Gotham detective dating Dr. Corr.

With its intense mood and electrifying set-pieces, Clayface is nicely (well, nastily) positioned to be the must-see fright-fest of this Halloween. There’s plenty to discuss, although when I catch up with the movie’s star, Rhys Harries, our conversation kicks off in decidedly unexpected fashion.

Noticing I’m wearing a Barcelona top, the 33-year-old Welsh actor briefly engages me on the subject of soccer, before making a pivot.

“Did you watch the All Ireland final?” he asks excitedly. “Amazing!”

Well, this is a turn-up for the books – Mayo’s Sam Maguire triumph turning heads in Gotham. Perhaps next we’ll have the Joker raving about Westmeath’s Leinster championship win. Does Rhys Harries follow GAA?

“Listen man,” he explains, “I’m just a big sports fan and I’ve got a lot of Irish friends. So I was glad to see Mayo get one – 75 years!”

Inevitably, the talk turns back to soccer – Tom is a fan of both the Welsh national team and Cardiff City – and I find myself speculating if Clayface is a Barcelona fan.

“I can’t work out if the real world/fictional crossover works there,” chuckles Tom. “But do you know what? At one point in Clayface, there’s a basketball team called the Gotham Knights. I have a Gotham Knights vest and it’s so cool. I stole a lot of stuff from the set (laughs).”

Having previously had roles in everything from Midsomer Murders and Doctor Who to the Apple+ series Suspicion, there’s no doubt landing the lead in Clayface represents a huge breakthrough for Rhys Harries. Did securing the part take a long time?

“Yeah, it took about four months,” he nods. “That was from first hearing about it, and from that point, there was a kind of gradual, ratcheting intensity. I started out thinking, ‘Surely I’m not gonna get this’. You have to have to have a lot of persistence as an actor, a lot of delusional blind faith. It’s just a case of right place, right time, and it was a long process.”

Did the filmmakers identify particular performances of his, which they felt suggested he could play Clayface?

“Not that I’m aware of,” considers Rhys Harries. “But there was a point where I was preparing and shooting Clayface, where I was acutely aware of certain projects I’d done in the past. I was trying out different things and pushing limitations I felt I had as an actor – that contributed to the process of doing Clayface. I think that carries on as an actor, if you’re fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work.

“There’s no destination, it’s just hopefully failing upwards – or failing in a positive direction.”

Did Rhys Harries have the sense this could be a life-changing part?

“Certainly, I was aware of the gravity of it,” he says. “It’s the first time I’ve ever led a studio film, and it’s the biggest professional responsibility I’ve felt. But I don’t approach it any differently to how I’d approach anything else in my career. And there’s a certain point where you go, ‘I’m really glad I was the age I was when I got this opportunity.’ Because I’ve been doing this for almost 16 years.

“So I’ve had the opportunity to fuck up, try stuff, and not have a lot of eyes on me doing that. I’m really in awe of anyone who steps into that space at a younger age, and anybody who’s able to circumnavigate that. I’ve recently watched the new Spider-Man, and I’m so impressed with Tom Holland, just across the board.

“How he’s carried and conducted himself – that journey must have been wild.”

Over the past 40 years, some truly iconic performances have taken their place in the pantheon of Batman villains. To take the Joker alone, Jack Nicholson completely stole the show in Tim Burton’s Batman from 1989, a trick repeated by the late Heath Ledger in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, before Joaquin Phoenix put his own unique spin on the character in 2019’s Joker. Everybody from Mad Hatter to Professor Pyg featured in acclaimed TV series Gotham, while more recently, Paul Dano excelled as The Riddler in the 2022 blockbuster The Batman. Boasting a theatrical darkness, these characters must be tremendous fun to play.

“I think it’s appealing to actors,” Tom agrees. “It’s such fertile psychological ground – it’s like a sandbox that allows you to explore aspects of what it is to be human, whilst also having the means of being fantastical. That’s when these things work best. It’s rooted in something deeply human, but with means to express that in a bigger way.

“I love sci-fi, horror and superhero films, when they have a really firm grasp on how the metaphor works. I think you get lost when you too preoccupied with being in a spaceship, looking sick!”

Did Tom find it a help that Clayface was shot in the UK?

“We shot most of it on the Warners lot in Leavesden,” he notes. “And then a lot of it on location in Liverpool for Gotham city. I love Liverpool and Liverpudlians – it’s also close to the Welsh border. I’ve had a career with varying levels of responsibility as an actor. In shooting Clayface, one thing I really valued was, it felt like I was able to be part of the crew.

“In so much as my time on-set was as intensive as it would have been had I been a crew member. So I was really grateful to feel as contributive as I did on this feature, 'cos God man, the work of making a film is huge. You’ve got so many people doing countless different things.”

Obviously, there are a lot of elaborate make-up and technical effects in the movie. Was that a particular challenge?

“It was,” says Tom, “but it’s also one of those things where you go, ‘How do you use that?’ At a certain point, you have to go, ‘How does this apply to the character?’ A lot of the things I was experiencing, Matt would also be experiencing. How do you push through certain physical limitations? And then, that also transmutes into, ‘How would you use this, once you’ve grasped hold of a power?’

“There’s a sequence in the film I really love, which is Matt really playing with, and coming to terms with, what his body is now capable of doing. So all of it’s additive.”

Tom Rhys Harries at San Diego Comic-Con

Advance publicity for Clayface has cited one of its main influences as David Cronenberg’s The Fly, this year celebrating its 40th anniversary. That movie tells a similar tale, of an eccentric scientist, Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), who – after one of his experiments goes wrong – slowly turns into a fly-hybrid creature, much to the horror of his journalist girlfriend, Veronica (Geena Davis).

Loosely based on a shlocky ’50s horror, in a very Cronenberg move, the 1986 version strips out the pulp veneer in favour of a probing psychological journey. Soundtracked by Howard Shore’s sublimely eerie score, The Fly is now acknowledged as one of Cronenberg’s true masterpieces, alongside the likes of Videodrome, Naked Lunch and Crash.

The ending, in which the monstrous Brundle – who has gradually adopted a cold and brutal psychology – struggles to retain a vestige of his humanity, is perhaps Cronenberg’s most devastating. Certainly, in the manner in which he explored the disturbing effects of technology on the human psyche, the Canadian was among the most prophetic of filmmakers.

With The Fly now being cited as an influence on Clayface, it’s also further evidence of Cronenberg’s colossal ongoing influence on popular culture, with pop superstars Charli XCX and The Weeknd also among those to cite his work as an inspiration.

“You could probably look at Clayface, and in some regards, think of it as a love letter to The Fly,” suggests Rhys Harries. “To me, watching that movie, whilst he’s becoming a fly – right at the end of the film, he feels the most human. Because he’s so vulnerable, and in trying to retain a grasp of himself whilst he’s becoming a fly, there’s real humanity in it.

“That’s something I was trying to hold close to my chest throughout the whole shoot. Matt is trying to retain a sense of himself within the world, whilst these things are happening to him. But listen man, I love Cronenberg. I have this really strange relationship with the ’80s, because I wasn’t alive, although I was within touching distance!

“There’s something otherworldly to me about ’80s cinema, music, synths – it’s such an interesting period.”

More broadly, Clayface also comes with an impressive creative pedigree. The movie is co-written by horror maestro Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, the latter renowned for writing Nicolas Winding Refn’s cult hit Drive.

Although Flanagan had planned to direct before scheduling issues got in the way, Clayface landed another hugely talented filmmaker in James Watkins, known for directing the hit 2024 thriller Speak No Evil and episodes of shows like Black Mirror.

On the production side, meanwhile, there’s DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran, as well as Matt Reeves. The latter has been central to the Gotham universe in the 2020s, working on not just The Batman and The Penguin, but also the hotly anticipated The Batman: Part II, due out in 2028.

In the richly layered stories he has created, Reeves has successfully reinvented the extended world of Batman, whilst communicating with a huge audience. As well as his enthusiasm for Reeves’ output, Rhys Harries also nods to the rich tradition of Batman graphic novels.

Indeed, in the various cinematic Batman stories told in the 21st century, filmmakers have alluded to some key texts, including The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke and The Long Halloween. It’s certainly been easy to feel the atmosphere and narrative style of these works in the various Gotham-set tales we’ve seen over recent years.

Rhys Harries though, for his part, has own choice.

“I think what Matt’s done with The Batman and The Penguin, and what Todd Philips has done with Joker, is again testament to our fascination with Batman, and the Batman villains gallery. There’s an amazing comic I kept going back to, which Clayface features really briefly in, called A Serious House On Serious Earth.

“It was written by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean, and some of the artwork I find so evocative of that world. In the story, Clayface is like the embodiment of a disease. I kept going back to it, not intentionally, but I was continually drawn back. It was the idea of, ‘What would that feel like?’

“But listen, I’m a huge fan of Matt’s work. I think what Robert has done with that Batman is really amazing, and what Colin’s doing in The Penguin is remarkable. So to operate in an adjacent playing field is a real privilege that isn’t lost one me.”

As for Rhys Harries himself – perhaps we’ll see him over here for an All Ireland final at some stage.

“Listen, I would love to,” he enthuses. “I was in Dingle for a friend’s wedding – and Ireland’s magic, man. I wish Wales was in Ireland!”

• Clayface is in cinemas now.