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Clayface star teases future of the character – and explains the benefits of being the first to play him in film
Tom Rhys Harries plays the supervillain in DC's new origin story.
- Patrick Cremona
Published: Friday, 23 October 2026 at 11:41 am
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The third film in James Gunn's DC Universe has just arrived in UK cinemas, although it's a rather different beast to the previous two entries in the relaunched franchise.
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Whereas Superman and Supergirl focused on two of the most iconic characters in the DC Comics canon, new film Clayface centres on a character who will be less known to more casual fans.
Although Matt Hagen/Clayface has appeared a couple of times on screen in various forms – including in Batman: The Animated Series – this is the first time he's been front and centre in his own film.
You might think this would come with a certain degree of pressure for actor Tom Rhys Harries, but when he spoke to Radio Times ahead of release he revealed that he actually saw it as something of a good thing.
"You've got the benefit of [not having] reference points in feature film to go back to," he explained in an exclusive interview.
"So it's a real privilege to be able to establish a character that has this... you know, he's almost 90-years-old is Clayface. So I think the opportunity there overshadows any kind of pressure that you might feel."
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The film serves as an origin story for the villain, following promising actor Matt Hagen after he's disfigured following an altercation with a violent mob boss.
When he meets Dr Caitlin Bates (Naomi Ackie) and signs up for a miraculous cure, things seem to be on the way up again – only for it to emerge that there are some pretty drastic side effects that soon see him hell-bent on revenge.
Of course, given this is an origin story, you'd imagine that Gunn and his DC colleague Peter Safran will have plans for Clayface to feature in further films going forward, and Rhys Harries admits that the "possibilities are endless."
He added: "He could become any inanimate object or anybody, and he's also exceptionally strong. So yeah – bring it on!"
As well as portraying a relatively unfamiliar character, the film adopts a fairly unfamiliar genre for a superhero movie: body horror.
And Rhys Harries acknowledged that the picture served as a "love letter" to David Cronenberg's classic '80s flick The Fly.
"Whilst it takes the framework and inspiration from the Batman: The Animated Series episode Feet of Clay – which features Ron Perlman voicing Clayface brilliantly – the film is also like a real homage in some senses to The Fly," he explained.
And the actor enjoyed playing the character's psychological journey as he underwent a transformation emotionally as well as physically.
"I kept thinking he was regressing to something as opposed to becoming something," he explained.
"His physical form is obviously becoming huge, but internally, it feels like his most primal urges... the lids been taken off the pressure bottle.
"Eventually there's a point where he reaches breaking point where it's just like the cap is off, so he just let's rip!"
Clayface is now showing in UK cinemas.
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Authors
Patrick CremonaSenior Film Writer
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
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