As reported by Deadline, and confirmed by James Gunn, Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries (The Gentlemen, Suspicion) will star in DC Studios’s Clayface movie. The film, directed by James Watkins (Speak No Evil) and written by Mike Flanagan, is set to begin filming in the UK this year for a release on September 11, 2026.
Gunn stated, “After a long and incredibly exhaustive search, we finally have our DCU Clayface in Tom Rhys Harries. Both [The Batman director] Matt Reeves and I were just blown away by this guy, and can’t wait for you to see this film.” Harries, 34, reportedly beat out Jack O’Connell (Sinners), Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Leo Woodall (The White Lotus) and George MacKay (1917) for the part.
Little is currently known about the plot of the film, or what its take on the shapeshifting Batman villain will be like, although when Watkins came aboard to direct the movie in February, The Hollywood Reporter described it as “horror tale centering on a B-movie actor who injects himself with a substance to keep himself relevant.” This suggests it will center on the original Basil Karlo incarnation of the character, created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane in 1940, who eventually gained the shapeshifting abilities of his Silver Age counterpart Matt Hagen.
Gunn’s statement confirms the film will be set in the new DCU, instead of the more grounded Reevesverse that includes The Batman, The Penguin, and the upcoming sequel (due out October 1, 2027). Ironically, this means Harries is not the first actor to play this version of Clayface, as Alan Tudyk (who previously voiced him on Harley Quinn) filled in for the character’s guest appearance on Creature Commandos. Similarly, Kate Micucci voiced Clayface in his theatrical film debut, 2017’s LEGO Batman Movie, and he’s been portrayed on live-action TV shows by Kirk Baltz (The WB’s Birds of Prey), Brian McManamon (Gotham), and Lorraine Burroughs (Pennyworth), but in any case, Harries will still be the first actor to play him in a live-action, theatrical film.
As for whether Batman himself will make an appearance, Gunn mentioned in a Rolling Stone interview yesterday that the Dark Knight remains one of the tougher nuts for the DCU to crack, as there’ve been so many previous (and concurrent) versions of him. The character is expected to make his DCU debut (aside from a brief, non-speaking cameo in Creature Commandos) afterwards in The Brave and the Bold, meaning Clayface could very well become viewers’ first trip to DC Studios’s take on Gotham City.
