{"id":661287,"date":"2026-10-30T03:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T03:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/661287\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T03:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T03:50:10","slug":"clayface-star-tom-rhys-harries-on-surviving-a-multi-day-screen-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/661287\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Clayface’ Star Tom Rhys Harries on Surviving a Multi-Day Screen Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen Tom Rhys Harries<\/a> was screen testing for the lead role in Clayface<\/a>, he had one very clear directive to his team: He did not want to know who else was in the running. At the time, there were four other actors in consideration to play the titular antihero of the DC<\/a> Universe body horror thriller. \u201cI actually cut off my agent and said, \u2018Do not tell me who else it is,\u2019\u201d says Harries. \u201cI just needed to be in the zone, without thinking about who they\u2019re considering.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor spent the next week preparing and then spent three grueling hours testing for Warner Bros. and director James Watkins<\/a> (Speak No Evil, Black Mirror). When he emerged, exhausted but feeling good about his performance, he asked his team to reveal the names of his competition. \u201cI was curious, and by then it would no longer affect me negatively because I was done.\u201d The next day, he got a call that the studio actually wanted him to come in and test for a second time. \u201cI had to put my blinders on,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt that point, Harries had a solid decade of work under his belt, but had not yet broken out in a massive way. Now 36, the actor grew up in Cardiff, Wales, to schoolteacher parents and trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama before moving to London to pursue a full time career. \u201cI really don\u2019t know if I could do anything else,\u201d he says of his laser focus on his career, though he is quick to point out the advice he got early on. \u201cAn older actor said to me, an actor doesn\u2019t have a career, they have a succession of jobs \u2014\u00a0if they\u2019re lucky.\u201d Harries started working in the theater, making his West End debut in Jez Butterworth\u2019s Mojo in 2014 before nabbing roles in projects like The Gentleman and Doctor Who. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen in DC Studios\u2019 Clayface<\/a>, a Warner Bros. Pictures release.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Warner Bros. Pictures<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s interesting, because the jobs that have given me visibility or reach aren\u2019t necessarily what gives you the most creative growth,\u201d he says, noting his role in Jamie Lloyd\u2019s 2017 The Pitchfork Disney. \u201cI really gave myself over to it, and I shifted into a zone as far as where I thought my ceiling was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Harries was going through the audition process<\/a> for Clayface \u2014 which started the old-fashioned way, with a text from his agents about the search and then a meeting with the casting director \u2014\u00a0he knew that he was coming into it as a potentially big risk for the studio. \u201cAll the other [actors] had a proof of concept for leading a studio film, doing a press run,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd there are so many moments where an unknown quality could falter. I could deliver a great performance, but they haven\u2019t got a great reference point as to what I\u2019d be like with the crew, the rest of the cast, and in the press.\u201d He found out he got the part just a few days after that second screen test, and once he made it to the Manchester set he realized that despite the potential pressure of being number one on the call sheet for a massive production, a larger movie actually just meant a larger support circle.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was just texting with a friend of mine who is leading a TV series for the first time, and we were talking about how it\u2019s sort of counterintuitive, but it\u2019s actually easier when you have so many people around you,\u201d says Harries. \u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m grateful for the film being received well, because you realize how many people have invested their time and work into this thing. Even before I step foot on set, I\u2019ve had countless sessions with my dialect coach, countless sessions with my trainer, and years of conversations and emails and texts with my agents chasing things that never materialized.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tClayface has been a success so far, pulling in positive reviews and topping the box office during opening weekend<\/a> (and despite the allure of Nathan Fielder\u2019s You Can See Everything). It\u2019s poised to be a major turning point in Harries\u2019 career, but he\u2019s trying not to get too caught in the weeds of A Big Break. \u201cI haven\u2019t got any grand aspirations of how I\u2019m going to do this now, because fundamentally nothing is going to change \u2014 it might open a few more doors in terms of who I\u2019m able to talk to, but otherwise I just want to be involved with projects from creators who I back fundamentally.\u201d Instead, he\u2019s focusing on the emotional connections that Clayface has wrought \u2014\u00a0like hearing from his old high school teachers.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s kept in touch with one in particular, who came up to London to see his first play and recently FaceTimed Harries along with a group of his other former teachers after they\u2019d all gone to see a showing of Clayface. \u201cIt was really cute, especially because when I was in school, I think it was very much a case of, \u2018if this kid doesn\u2019t find something to focus on, he\u2019s fucked,’\u201d he laughs. \u201cIf this teacher wasn\u2019t there, I would not be having this conversation with you right now.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Tom Rhys Harries was screen testing for the lead role in Clayface, he had one very clear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[10800,29447,146,85,46,397,13307],"class_list":["post-661287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-clayface","tag-dc","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies","tag-tom-rhys-harries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}