{"id":814943,"date":"2026-10-27T00:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T00:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/814943\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T00:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T00:54:13","slug":"clayface-director-on-the-tragic-ending-joker-easter-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/814943\/","title":{"rendered":"Clayface Director on the Tragic Ending, Joker Easter Eggs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains spoilers for Clayface<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Clayface team has every reason to smile after its opening weekend, none more so than director James Watkins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tBetween topping its $44 million production budget with a $46.5 million global box office bow and earning a Certified Fresh badge on Rotten Tomatoes, the DC Studios movie has plenty to celebrate. But the bigger story is the audience response. While the genre pic earned a 75 percent critics score, its mark among verified moviegoers climbed to 94 percent. The film also landed an A- CinemaScore, an extreme rarity for the horror genre. For Watkins, the reception offers a happy ending to an unexpectedly challenging production process.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat compelled the British filmmaker to sell his wares to DC Studios bosses James Gunn<\/a> and Peter Safran as the potential helmer of Clayface was a phrase coined by original screenwriter Mike Flanagan. The latter described his screenplay as \u201ca tragedy in three acts,\u201d a hook that inspired Watkins\u2019 own pitch about the devolution of newly Oscar-nominated actor Matt Hagen into the malleable, monstrous foe of Batman. Watkins\u2019 body-horror ideas even made Gunn, a horror vet, \u201cwince\u201d en route to landing the job.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor anyone familiar with Watkins\u2019 filmography, his handle on tragic horror should come as no surprise. His breakout film, Eden Lake (2008), starring Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender and Jack O\u2019Connell, is one of the bleakest, most devastating genre films of the 21st century. It also inspired the gut-wrenching ending of Christian Tafdrup\u2019s Speak No Evil (2022), the Dutch-Danish psychological horror-thriller that Watkins reimagined for American audiences in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnfortunately, Watkins faced his own personal tragedy in the middle of post-production on Clayface. He received a call informing him that his father, Dr. George Watkins CBE, had died without warning. Gunn and Safran immediately gave Watkins the space he needed to tend to his family\u2019s loss. The DC Studios co-chairs recently extended similar grace to Clayface producer Matt Reeves during a private family crisis of his own amid production on The Batman Part II.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were in the thick of it, and my dad died very suddenly. As you can imagine, it was difficult,\u201d Watkins tells The Hollywood Reporter. \u201cJames and Peter reached out and afforded me time and were very kind at a point when there was a film to finish. So I\u2019ll never forget that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother component of Watkins\u2019 winning pitch centered on Matt Hagen\u2019s loss of identity and livelihood, a universal fear that can stem from physical maladies, technological disruptions or uncontrollable economic conditions. In Hagen\u2019s case, a mobster disfigures his face, effectively ending his acting career just as it\u2019s reaching new heights. Behind the scenes, Clayface star Tom Rhys Harries<\/a> was quietly concealing a significant knee injury to avoid jeopardizing a career-altering role, adding another meta dimension to the film.<\/p>\n

\n\tWatkins and his team remained unaware of the Welsh actor\u2019s torn ACL until Rhys Harries came clean while filming a sequence in which Matt flees a movie premiere and gets hit by a car.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe still did the jump and the fall, but he was frank about it. We were like, \u2018We obviously don\u2019t want to create a lifelong injury for you.\u2019 So we had to finesse how we did the stunt,\u201d Watkins recalls. \u201cBut it\u2019s not like he was cast to play Premier League or NFL football. He\u2019s acting, so [having foreknowledge of his injury] wouldn\u2019t have made any difference to me. Tom was absolutely the right actor for the role.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHagen eventually seeks out Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) for an experimental procedure involving AI nanocells, which are intended to repair and regenerate damaged tissue. The results are initially astonishing, but the treatment comes with side effects whenever Hagen succumbs to negative thoughts and emotions. In an effort to gloat vindictively in front of his former agent and collaborators, his new face begins to melt at a movie premiere he crashed.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe incident sends him straight back to Caitlyn\u2019s lab, prompting him to overdose on her nanite treatment. That fateful decision further transforms him into a volatile shapeshifter whose preexisting lack of impulse control is further exploited by the nanos coursing through his veins.<\/p>\n

\n\tGetting into spoilers, Matt\u2019s escalating thirst for vengeance comes to a head at a nightclub owned by the mob boss who sliced up his face in the first place. With the story hurtling toward its tragic conclusion, Watkins developed this showstopping set piece during the later stages of rewriting Mike Flanagan\u2019s script. He worked on the revisions with Hossein Amini, the Drive screenwriter with whom he had previously created McMafia. The goal of Matt\u2019s revenge tour was to let audiences revel in the satisfaction of vengeance before flipping the script in the end.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt came to me quite late in the process. I really wanted to beef up Matt\u2019s journey upstairs [to confront mobster Markos Szabo]. I kept talking about capturing the feeling of Robin Hood movies, or a film like El Cid, where they storm the castle,\u201d Watkins says. \u201cI also wanted to show Matt discovering and experiencing the dark glee that comes with his powers. He\u2019s been on quite a tough ride to that point, and I wanted to give the audience permission to enjoy the payback.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMatt taking down the mobsters who wronged him may qualify as an understandable form of street justice, but his next move is unjustifiable. He murders Caitlyn\u2019s fianc\u00e9, Gotham PD Detective John Borelli (Max Minghella), despite Borelli\u2019s efforts to secure legal justice for Matt. That changes only after the detective begins to suspect that Matt has been targeting the key figures who destroyed his life.<\/p>\n

\n\tJohn, however, was already caught between a rock and a hard place. Caitlyn\u2019s use of an untested procedure on Matt meant that arresting him could also implicate her. But as Watkins points out, Matt\u2019s nanobot-altered state of mind means his decision to murder John isn\u2019t primarily about avoiding criminal charges. Instead, he has developed a reverse Florence Nightingale effect and become obsessed with the doctor who treated him. (If Caitlyn hadn\u2019t returned home when she did \u2014 leaving Matt no time to get rid of John\u2019s body \u2014 was Matt prepared to pose as John indefinitely?)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe nanos are taking over him, and these primal impulses are bubbling up within him. From his point of view, it\u2019s explicable,\u201d Watkins says. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean we have to like it, but he\u2019s acting out of some combination of self-defense, love and a weird obsession. He\u2019s just gone at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, during a conversation with THR, Watkins also discusses Clayface\u2018s Joker-related Easter Eggs from Tim Burton\u2019s Batman (1989), as well as Aaron Paul\u2019s ephemeral cameo.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tJames Gunn reposted THR\u2019s Clayface review<\/a> on Instagram and captioned it by saying \u201cwhat a pleasure\u201d it\u2019s been to work with you. Generally speaking, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard all the horror stories about working within executive-controlled cinematic universes, so is it safe to say you had a pretty ideal experience by comparison?<\/p>\n

\n\tI had an excellent experience, and it\u2019s really easy for me to say that. I\u2019m not trying to fly the flag or do some party line; I genuinely did. Everything was straightforward with James, Peter, Matt [Reeves], Lynn Harris and everybody on the whole team<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I first read Mike Flanagan\u2019s script, I really wanted to lean into and honor the fact that he called it \u201ca tragedy in three acts\u201d \u2014 but still do everything you can to root for the character. So after I read Mike\u2019s script, I pitched a version of the film that everyone signed up to do, and they supported me all the way through in trying to achieve that version. I say to people, if you don\u2019t like the film, you can\u2019t blame them. It\u2019s on me because I had all the support.<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\t(L-R) Peter Safran, Co-Chairman & Co-Chief Executive Officer, DC Studios, James Watkins and James Gunn, Co-Chairman & CEO, DC Studios, attend the world premiere of Warner Bros. \u201cClayface\u201d at Hollywood Legion Theater on October 13, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKevin Winter\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tIt also sounds like they were human beings. Clayface is dedicated to your late father, Dr. George Watkins CBE, and James and Peter Safran were very accommodating when you had to step away during post?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, they were. We were in the thick of it, and my dad died very suddenly. As you can imagine, it was difficult. James and Peter reached out and afforded me time and were very kind at a point when there was a film to finish. So I\u2019ll never forget that. They were very classy about it.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m very sorry for your loss.<\/p>\n

\n\tThank you.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs mentioned, you signed on at a time when there was a Mike Flanagan-written draft, and you eventually brought in your previous collaborator, Hossein Amini, for rewrites. But when people hear Mike\u2019s name, they think, It\u2019s Mike Flanagan. Why wouldn\u2019t you bet on his screenplay?<\/p>\n

\n\tI understand that.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, I\u2019ve been doing this long enough to know that there\u2019s no such thing as a \u201clocked script.\u201d If there isn\u2019t an on-set writer making tweaks, then the filmmakers and actors are the ones tinkering. Then the edit is known as the final rewrite. So even if you stuck with Mike\u2019s draft by the time cameras rolled, changes were inevitable.<\/p>\n

\n\tCorrect. It is exactly that. The film we made is very much in line with Mike\u2019s brilliant script. That\u2019s why I wanted to make the film. I\u2019d be stupid to sign on and go, \u201cWell, let\u2019s just completely re-engineer it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tScorsese says a director\u2019s job is to make the audience fall in love with their obsessions. I just did a Q&A with director Kevin Macdonald the other day, and as directors and as people, we perceive things slightly differently. If Mike would go somewhere naturally, I might go here and Kevin might go there. It\u2019s just the nature of it.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen there\u2019s the practicalities of production. You\u2019re building sets, and if there\u2019s seven scenes set in the science lab, you\u2019re like, \u201cWell, can we compress those into four?\u201d You\u2019re also working with the actors on finding and refining things, so it\u2019s always evolving.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m reading Sam Wasson\u2019s book on Chinatown at the moment, and if you read about the evolution of that film, it\u2019s exactly that. There were so many iterations of Robert Towne\u2019s screenplay before you got the actual finished film.<\/p>\n

\n\tSicario had a Taylor Sheridan script that the entire town bid on, and Denis Villeneuve, Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro still didn\u2019t hesitate to rewrite scenes on the day. So I\u2019m not sure people fully understand that a script is a living document.<\/p>\n

\n\tPeople don\u2019t understand that. There are practical realities on set, and they just naturally evolve. There\u2019s no shade on anybody or anything. It\u2019s just a natural evolutionary process of discovering things. If the script says there\u2019s a brick wall \u2014 and the [otherwise perfect] building you\u2019re scouting doesn\u2019t have a brick wall \u2014 then you\u2019re going to have to change it.<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tTom Rhys Harries on the set of James Watkins\u2019 Clayface.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tParisa Taghizadeh\/Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\tI just spoke to a director named David Leitch, and he recently worked with Nicholas Hoult at a time when everyone knew that Nick had a torn ACL. You, on the other hand, apparently did not know that your lead actor, Tom Rhys Harries, was privately dealing with his own torn ACL. Was there a point during filming where you spotted the hitch in his giddy-up?<\/p>\n

\n\tThere certainly was. There\u2019s a moment in the film when Matt gets hit by a car, and that\u2019s when it came out. Tom had a quiet word with the stunt man about it.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the car stunt, you do a bit of the stunt with Tom, and then you do a bit of it with a stunt man. So the stunt team would hit Tom with a crash pad to get the first reaction, and then you\u2019d overlap it with a real car hitting a stunt man. But Tom was like, \u201cThe worst possible thing you can do is hit somebody on the leg and take them out at that angle.\u201d He still did the jump and the fall, but he was frank about it. We were like, \u201cYeah, we obviously don\u2019t want to create a lifelong injury for you.\u201d So we had to finesse how we did the stunt, but it was quite straightforward.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut it\u2019s not like he was cast to play Premier League or NFL football. He\u2019s acting, so [having foreknowledge of his injury] wouldn\u2019t have made any difference to me. I thought Tom was absolutely the right actor for the role. I also suspect that some of these film medicals don\u2019t go that deep.<\/p>\n

\n\tMatt lost his career after his face was disfigured, and the actor playing him withheld a major injury to avoid losing a career-changing role. The parallels between life and art are quite striking.<\/p>\n

\n\tAbsolutely. It was always quite meta. Tom just went on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to promote the movie, and he sent me a screenshot of him walking out on stage and waving at the audience. He tagged it with \u201cvery meta,\u201d because it\u2019s literally the same shot as when Matt goes on The Vic Chissler Show. It was so uncanny. We had referenced all these late-night shows and stolen their iconography, so it came around full circle.<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, Tom and Nick are going to have a lot to talk about at the DCU Christmas party.<\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughs.) Yes, indeed.<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tTom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen in James Watkins\u2019 Clayface.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tParisa Taghizadeh\/Warner Bros. Pictures<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of body horror, I can\u2019t imagine there was time or budget to reset the prosthetics umpteen times, so was there a lot of pressure to nail some of those moments in one go?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was never one go, but in prep with the ADs, the question was always, \u201cHow many takes have we got? What\u2019s the reset time? How long will it take to shoot this?\u201d And usually they\u2019d go, \u201cIt\u2019s a 45-minute reset.\u201d And then we were like, \u201cIs there anything else we can shoot during that time? Can we turn the camera around on something else?\u201d But often, when they say it\u2019s 45 minutes to reset, they\u2019re usually giving themselves a little bit of flex. It was usually 30 minutes to reset.<\/p>\n

\n\tBeyond the practicalities of budget and time, it\u2019s also performance. If Tom has contact lenses and [prosthetics] on, his eyes or his skin might start to dry out after a certain amount of time. So there was a practical limit on it.<\/p>\n

\n\tMatt\u2019s lack of impulse control is the ultimate issue here, but I do appreciate the manner in which you utilized AI as the unpredictable activating agent in all this. Within the past few weeks especially, we\u2019ve learned just how deceptive and unreliable AI can be, so your movie accurately underscores that danger.<\/p>\n

\n\tAny horror film, to be interesting, should tap into anxieties that we all have. Whether it\u2019s social horror or technological horror, you want to get under people\u2019s skin. In this case, we do it literally. So the body horror of it all relates to the real fears of our bodies betraying us and then the use of AI in medicine. Who knows, maybe it will be able to provide solutions down the line, but it\u2019s a real fear that we have right now. What are the guardrails, if any? So [AI\u2019s role in the creation of Clayface] was definitely one of the elements that appealed to me about trying to pull this cautionary tale off.<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tTom Rhys Harries and Director James Watkins on the set of DC Studios\u2019 Clayface.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tParisa Taghizadeh\/Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe third-act nightclub sequence is a showstopper. How complicated was it to piece that together given all of Matt\u2019s shapeshifting?<\/p>\n

\n\tPractically, it was very complicated, and we tried to do as much of it as possible in camera. If somebody went behind a pillar and somebody else came out the other side, it required a lot of planning to capture a moment like that in camera. So it was most exhausting because I was still shooting other material and also trying to work out how to shoot and storyboard the entire sequence. We had storyboards in the corner of the stage, and I\u2019d work on them during lunch or whenever I could. I\u2019d even take them home to make tweaks during weekends. So I\u2019m really proud of it, but it was probably the most daunting sequence I\u2019ve ever shot.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt came to me quite late in the process. I really wanted to beef up Matt\u2019s journey upstairs [to confront mobster Markos Szabo]. I kept talking about capturing the feeling of Robin Hood movies, or a film like El Cid, where they storm the castle. Before the hero can reach the keep and rescue Maid Marian or whoever, they have to fight their way through the outer defenses. I also wanted to show Matt discovering and experiencing the dark glee that comes with his powers. He\u2019s been on quite a tough ride to that point, and I wanted to give the audience permission to enjoy the payback.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnless my eyes deceive me, how did you get Aaron Paul to show up for a blink-and-you\u2019ll-miss-it shot as Matt\u2019s dad, \u201cJimmy One-Nut\u201d?<\/p>\n

\n\tHe is a very nice man and a wonderful actor. The team was talking about the casting of Jimmy One-Nut, and I said, \u201cWell, what about Aaron Paul?\u201d It just so happened that he was between Paris and London. He was not on the other side of the planet from where we were shooting in England.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe lives in Paris now.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere you go. So he said, \u201cYeah.\u201d And he was such a gentleman. I\u2019d love to work with Aaron again. He came in, and it\u2019s just the moment, right?<\/p>\n

\n\tDid he ever comment about the name Jimmy One-Nut?<\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughs.) He had a good sense of humor about it. He didn\u2019t mind. [Writer\u2019s Note: Minutes after this interview ended, EW reported<\/a> that Paul actually filmed a number of flashbacks that hit the cutting room floor.]<\/p>\n

\n\tIs the idea behind the final fantasy with Caitlyn that he can not only turn himself into another person, but he can simultaneously mold himself into a second person if he so pleases?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, there\u2019s been some sort of growth [since we saw his remnants go down the storm drain]. If you look at the comics, Clayface gets quite big. He\u2019s massive in some of them. So whatever happened during that kill-switch moment, there\u2019s been this amplification of the monster. So maybe there\u2019s just more of him, and he\u2019s able to use a bit of him to create somebody else.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen he adopts another person\u2019s being, he likely inherits their vocal properties to some degree, but I did wonder at first if the actor in him was just mimicking each voice. How do you see it?<\/p>\n

\n\tYou can read it both ways, perhaps. When he first becomes Eddie Marsan\u2019s Frank, he gets the voice wrong before he gets it right. Clayface is a character whose superpower is mutability, the ability to shapeshift, and Matt, the person behind him, is already a brilliant actor with a brilliant mimetic quality. So what I thought was most interesting was that the superpower has a superpower. There\u2019s potentially a collision between the two, which makes it interesting. Of course, we have quite a lot of fun with it and lean into the idea of an actor playing different characters.<\/p>\n

\n\tEddie Marsan told me his son asked who he\u2019s playing in Clayface, and Eddie was like, \u201cI\u2019m Clayface.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHey, he wasn\u2019t lying.<\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughs.) Exactly.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat did you learn and apply from test screenings?<\/p>\n

\n\tJon Harris, my longtime editor, and I like to test informally before we test formally. We show the film to a lot of people and try to understand what we sometimes can\u2019t see ourselves. First, there\u2019s pace, then clarity, then point of view and character identification.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou always learn something. Often, you learn what\u2019s extraneous. If you\u2019re hanging on to something, you\u2019ll realize during a test screening that you don\u2019t even need to wait for the cards to come back at the end. You\u2019re already like, \u201cYeah, we don\u2019t need that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSomeone said to me once that test screenings are a necessary pain for directors, but I don\u2019t think so. It\u2019s a really, really useful tool; it just needs to be used well. You get a fantastic amount of data, feedback and information \u2014 and then it\u2019s about making sure the solutions are right.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s the same with notes. Often, you\u2019ll get a note on a script or a cut, and you\u2019re like, What\u2019s the note behind the note? Sometimes, you get notes with prescriptions. People will say, \u201cOh, why don\u2019t you try that?\u201d And you\u2019re like, \u201cWell \u2026\u201d But they\u2019re scratching away at something. If ten people tell you you\u2019re drunk, lie down.<\/p>\n

\n\tClayface has a couple Batman-related Easter Eggs. Matt\u2019s penthouse coffee table is Joker\u2019s coffee table from Tim Burton\u2019s Batman (1989). And the chair on which he receives his plastic surgery consultation is the same barber-style chair that Jack Napier sat on during his botched surgery in Burton\u2019s pic. But did you ever pitch a \u201cWhere\u2019s Waldo\u201d-style shot where you insert a tiny silhouette of Batman on a rooftop in a wide shot?<\/p>\n

\n\tNow I\u2019m slightly annoyed that I didn\u2019t do that. I probably could have done it in the deep background of a massive wide shot. No one would probably ever know. But anything bigger than that, I just felt that this is Matt Hagen\u2019s story. The idea of trying to crowbar in another character would feel too cute or too tricksy and somehow inauthentic.<\/p>\n

\n\tDid everybody make a fuss about The Batman (1989) props?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, there was a lot of geeking out on set. Everybody was going, \u201cOh, wow, look at this.\u201d There\u2019s quite a lot of Brian De Palma references as well. The scene in the nightclub, when Matt, as Cadillac Sal, is forced to sit at the table, that\u2019s very much an homage to Carlito\u2019s Way. Carlito is trying to walk through his club, but he gets dragged back to a table. And the costumes are similar, very knowingly.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou shot in Liverpool where Matt Reeves\u2019 The Batman movies shoot. Did you have to avoid any locational overlap since Matt\u2019s movies are not a part of the DCU?<\/p>\n

\n\tI didn\u2019t want to have the same buildings be the same buildings. It wasn\u2019t so much about the DC universe; I just didn\u2019t want to just copy somebody else. It feels lazy. There is so much great architecture in Liverpool. We had all the references, so we just made sure that if we were anywhere in the same vicinity that we put our own spin on it. James Price is an absolutely brilliant production designer. He\u2019s really, really bloody good, so we had a good time.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Matt disposes of Cadillac Sal, he says, \u201cAnd hell\u2019s coming with me.\u201d Was that a tribute to Kurt Russell\u2019s Wyatt Earp in Tombstone?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a great movie line, but it wasn\u2019t in my consciousness, initially. I\u2019ve obviously seen Tombstone, but I didn\u2019t remember that. There\u2019s lots of other little movie references and nods in the movie. Corey\u2019s death scene \u2026<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou broke my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, that was very much stolen from The Godfather Part II. Some of the shots were also very much an homage to that moment and how Michael hugs Fredo. So there\u2019s quite a few little moments that pay homage. You are what you eat, aren\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

\n\tHave you spitballed any sequel concepts yet?<\/p>\n

\n\tGenuinely, no. I\u2019ve been on a long, long road trying to make this film the best it can be. People ask, \u201cWhat are you doing next?\u201d And I\u2019m slightly starting to worry because I have no idea. I\u2019ve been that immersed in Clayface.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat day best sums up that long, long road?<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are so many. We were doing a lot of icky stuff, and when Matt overdoses and spits out these horrible things in front of Naomi\u2019s character [Caitlyn], I\u2019ll always remember Naomi\u2019s laugh. It was just too much to take for her.<\/p>\n

\n\tI would also say the airplane sequence. We shot it with a gimbal in the airplane toilet, and Tom was in full prosthetics. He was getting chucked about the lavatory as he was digging the scissors into his eyes. People generally don\u2019t talk on film sets for obvious reasons, but on a set with a hundred people, I heard 50 people at various monitors go, \u201cOh my God!\u201d So I do remember thinking at that moment, Yeah, this scene\u2019s got a chance.<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\tTom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen and Max Minghella as John Borrelli in James Watkins\u2019 Clayface.<\/p>\n

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

\n\tI still have some amount of sympathy for Matt, but his decision to murder Max Minghella\u2019s cop character, John, is an awfully bitter pill to swallow. As I was watching, I kept thinking, Oh, John is not going to be able to collar Matt without implicating Caitlyn. Thus, he\u2019s going to become the type of cop that he\u2019s condemned throughout the movie, one who looks the other way. So it\u2019s a shocking move because Matt probably didn\u2019t have to go that far due to John\u2019s Catch-22.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s good in terms of misdirection. But you\u2019re approaching it from John\u2019s point of view. Matt\u2019s point of view probably wouldn\u2019t see it that way.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, Matt is probably not thinking about John\u2019s legal dilemma. He just wants to be the object of Caitlyn\u2019s affection in any way can, even if it means shapeshifting into her fianc\u00e9 (John).<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s all quite interesting, and I think a lot of people share your feelings. There\u2019s been audible gasps in the cinema when John\u2019s death is revealed. Max brilliantly plays the character. He could have so easily been the third wheel and a bit of a sap, but he brings such humanity, warmth and humor to him.<\/p>\n

\n\tLooking at it in terms of Matt\u2019s character motivations, he\u2019s in the crosshairs. He\u2019s under suspicion. But the nanos are taking over him, and these primal impulses are bubbling up within him. So, from a normal point of view, you might go, No, no, no. But from his point of view, it\u2019s explicable. It doesn\u2019t mean we have to like it, but he\u2019s acting out of some combination of self-defense, love and a weird obsession. He\u2019s just gone at that point.<\/p>\n

\n\t***
Clayface is now playing in movie theaters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains spoilers for Clayface.] The Clayface team has every reason to smile after its opening weekend,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9711,96,1155,9712,2839,62264,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-814943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-clayface","tag-entertainment","tag-james-gunn","tag-james-watkins","tag-movies","tag-tom-rhys-harries","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}