Photo Credits: Warner Brothers
In exclusive interviews at the Toronto premiere, director James Watkins and star Tom Rhys Harries discuss the practical effects, disturbing transformations, and human story behind Clayface.
James Watkins (Speak No Evil, The Woman in Black) has never been afraid to explore the darker side of storytelling, but Clayface presented a new challenge. This time, the horror isn’t just about what a character does, but what happens when the human body itself becomes something terrifying.
“I haven’t done body horror before,” Watkins told SWAGGER. “We all have anxieties about our bodies, what can go wrong, anxieties about science and medicine and AI and all those sorts of things.”
It was that connection to real-world fears that interested him. Rather than simply making something disturbing for the sake of it, Watkins saw an opportunity to turn those anxieties into something audiences could experience on a much more visceral level.
“I thought there was a real opportunity to make a really great roller coaster ride that really lent into body horror.”
And when it came to bringing those horrifying moments to the screen, Watkins wasn’t interested in relying entirely on digital effects.
“Whenever we could do effects practically, we did. So there’s an awful lot of practical effects, and old-school prosthetic makeup. I just like the quality that it has when you’re filming things in camera for actors to respond to real time. I just think it has more truth, I guess.”
Tom Rhys Harries (White Lines, Suspicion), who plays Matt Hagen, experienced that approach firsthand, although the production gradually eased him into the more elaborate prosthetics.
“In prosthetics, we kind of like baby-stepped into it,” he recalled.
He even has footage of an early camera test involving a particularly gruesome eye effect.
“I’ve got a video on my phone that I was trying to find the other day of an early camera test of the eye cutting and pulling; it’s just brutal.”
The footage was originally shot on a digital camera, which Harries then recorded on his iPhone, giving the already disturbing test an even stranger appearance.
“It looks like a horror film,” he said.
Despite being a horror fan himself, Harries admitted that participating in those scenes was a different experience from watching them. “I’m approaching it from a completely different place, participating in it than I would be if I was watching it.”
Of course, Clayface isn’t entirely about what happens to Matt physically. There’s also the question of how audiences connect with a character whose decisions become increasingly difficult to justify.
Watkins admitted that he didn’t know Harries before he came in for the role, but something about the actor immediately stood out.
“He just had a quality that I felt was right for Matt,” Watkins explained. Finding someone who could make the character sympathetic was especially important.
“It’s not easy to make that character relatable or likeable that you root for him. And just Tom has that somehow.”
It’s a quality Watkins believes carries the audience through Matt’s increasingly dark journey, even when his choices become questionable.
For Harries, approaching Matt meant trying to understand his motivations rather than judging his actions. “I try to empathize with any character and the decisions that they make, regardless of what they do.”
Harries was also excited about the opportunity to step into Gotham. “Listen, you’re getting to build a world and we get to see a snapshot of the rich and dark underbelly of Gotham,” Harries said. “That’s inherently exciting in and of itself.”
For Watkins, Clayface is another opportunity to explore the darker sides of human experience. Although horror has become a familiar part of his work, he doesn’t necessarily see himself as a filmmaker defined by the genre.
“I’m not really led by genre, I’m led by story,” he explained. “But I just think there’s so many opportunities in horror to tell great stories.”
Harries, meanwhile, credits Watkins with bringing empathy to even his darkest stories. “James has an incredible pathos to him,” he said, pointing to the contrast between the filmmaker’s darker work and the empathy at the heart of his storytelling.
It’s something Harries believes makes the film’s more disturbing moments that much more effective. The gore and physical transformations may be what initially draw audiences in, but without an emotional connection to the characters, those moments would lose much of their impact.
“You earn them by caring about these characters,” Harries said.
Clayface hits theatres and IMAX across North America on October 23, 2026.