Hunky gory … Rhys Harries in full rock’n’roller mode. Photograph: Austin Hargrave View image in fullscreen Hunky gory … Rhys Harries in full rock’n’roller mode. Photograph: Austin Hargrave Film ‘A tipping point of ickiness’: Welsh star Tom Rhys Harries on playing eyelid-snipping DC supervillain Clayface He cut his teeth playing rock stars and pretty posh boys. Speaking from his LA home, the actor talks about landing his first blockbuster lead in the grisly DC horror. Will it be too shocking for comic book fans?
Prefer the Guardian on Google E xactly 13 years ago this month, Tom Rhys Harries was hanging by his ankles from a meat hook every night. Playing a teenage rock’n’roll idol abducted by gangsters in a revival of Jez Butterworth’s Mojo, Harries was fresh out of drama school and the only unknown in a cast led by Ben Whishaw and Rupert Grint. The Guardian’s Michael Billington likened him to “an embryonic Elvis”.
Now the 36-year-old Cardiff-born actor has the title role in Clayface, a violent DC Comics supervillain blockbuster set in Batman’s stomping ground, Gotham City. This puts him in the company of fellow Brits in the comic-book universe, such as Tom Holland (Spider-Man), Robert Pattinson (Batman) and David Jonsson, recently announced as the new Black Panther. “I felt ready to do this,” says Harries. “Had I been younger, I’d have been suffocated by the insecurity of wanting to do a good job but not having that quiet trust in getting there.”
The audition lasted three months. How did I stay sane? I didn't Harries is speaking over video call from the beach-adjacent Los Angeles home he shares with his girlfriend, Amy Allen. She is the professional musician of the two: songwriter of the year at the Grammys two years running, no less, for her work with Sabrina Carpenter and others. It is Harries, though, who is giving rock star this morning, even all this time after Mojo, in his grey denim shirt with a silver chain against tanned skin and assorted silver rings on his fingers. Stadium-rocker pomposity, however, is in short supply. Standing up to shut the door, he draws attention to his fashion faux pas. “I’ve got a smart shirt on but then these ,” he laughs, gesturing to his navy-blue shorts. “Party on the bottom, business on top. Classic Zoom.”
View image in fullscreen Looksmaxxing … Naomi Acki and Rhys Davies in Clayface. Photograph: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures Harries has earned the right to relax. He spent three months auditioning to play the severely mutilated protagonist of Clayface for producers James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Matt Reeves (The Batman). How did he stay sane all that time? “I didn’t.”
His character is rising star Matt Hagen, who has just received his first Oscar nomination when he sleeps with the girlfriend of a razor-wielding mob boss and pays the price. His face slashed to ribbons and his career in tatters, Matt’s only hope lies with scientist Dr Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) and her miracle serum. This restores his good looks and gives him the power to change his appearance at will but comes with unstable side effects. In one scene, his eyelids melt, forcing him to snip away at the resulting sticky mess with a pair of nail scissors. Described by Harries as “the film’s tipping point of ickiness”, it is a moment that will be triggering for any conjunctivitis sufferers and plain disgusting for everyone else.
Closer to horror than anything in the superhero canon, Clayface is a cross between Darkman , i…