Clayface First Look: Tom Rhys Harries Transforms as Battered Batman Nemesis in Liverpool

DC came to Derby Square on Sunday as Liverpool’s thriving city centre was transformed into a scene of grim urban squalour.

The area served as an unlikely backdrop for English film director James Watkins as principal photography began on Clayface, an eagerly anticipated new addition to the Batman cinematic universe.

Cars declaring themselves as Gotham City Police were stationed alongside a van, apparently belonging to the Gotham Broadcasting Channel, outside a mocked-up hospital entrance as extras in paramedic uniforms wheeled guernies through its entrance doors. 

Amid the dramatised chaos, one actor stood out courtesy of his battered, blood smeared face and the heavy bandaging covering his head and neck. 

While little is known about Clayface, DC obsessives would have instantly recognised him as Tom Rhys Harries – the actor charged with playing the Batman nemesis. 

The Welsh star, best known for his former role in TV drama White Lines, was unrecognisable as he took a break between scenes. 

Harries, 32, announced his involvement in July, with the actor expected to star alongside Max Minghella, Naomi Ackie and an otherwise unconfirmed cast-list in the new film. 

Clayface is expected to fall within the same universe as 2022 blockbuster The Batman, in which Robert Pattinson played the Caped Crusader. 

An outlandish early synopsis describes the forthcoming film as a body horror about a promising actor who goes to extraordinary lengths to modify himself after his face is horribly disfigured by a brutal gangster. 

Mirroring The Substance, the hugely successful 2024 body horror drama starring Demi Moore as an ageing actress who uses a fantastical drug to star young, Clayface finds Harries’ character injecting himself  injects himself with a drug that keeps him relevant.

But he soon finds out it gives him the ability to not only reshape his face, but his entire body – by turning it into a piece of malleable clay. 

DC Studios co-chairperson and co-CEO Peter Safran recently claimed the Mike Flanagan drafted script is similar in tone to 1986 thriller The Fly, in which Jeff Goldblum’s scientist central character suffers a nightmarish physical transformation after his teleportation experiment goes horribly wrong.

Clayface, known for its unique shape-shifting abilities, was first introduced to the Batman comic book series in 1940 and has featured periodically as one of the superhero’s adversaries ever since.

Watkins will direct following his recent success with psychological horror Speak No Evil, an English language remake of the Danish-Dutch film of the same name. 

The director is also responsible for low budget British horror Eden Lake and a well received screen adaptation of The Woman in Black, starring Daniel Radcliffe.

The Batman director Matt Reeves is expected to co-produce the new film alongside Lynn Harris and DC Studios bosses Safran and James Gunn. 

Clayface was previously voiced by Alan Tudyk in the animated series Harley Quinn and Creature Commandos, and Ron Perlman in Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures  

Additionally, Brian McManamon played the character in Batman TV spin-off Gotham, while Lorraine Burroughs took a turn as the villain in HBO Max series Pennyworth. 

Clayface is expected to go on general release from September 11, 2026.