It remains a mystery why DC and Marvel don’t take more low-risk cinematic swings. In fact, Marvel has never done it. And DC has only done it once in recent years with Todd Phillips’ $60 million “The Joker” in 2019, only to reverse course and unleash a bloated $200 million sequel five years later with “Joker: Folie à Deux.”

At a time when the nine-figure superhero movie is struggling, along comes DC Studios’ “Clayface,” featuring a pair of relative unknowns in Tom Rhys Harries(as the titular villain) and Naomi Ackie(as the scientist whose experimental scar treatment spawns the shapeshifting psycho). The Warner Bros. release is lean (with a $44 million budget) and mean (think eyelids torn apart with pliers!). And like “Joker,” the film is rated R and built around a Batman nemesis who keeps the Gotham City PD working overtime. With “Clayface” opening today, we caught up with the film’s director James Watkins.

P6H: This is Clayface’s origin story. What is James Watkins’ origin story with landing this film?

James Watkins: “While I’m interested in horror, I’m not interested in just doing four kids going to the woods and get picked off by an ice pick murderer. I kind of want to get under the skin of something, I want to tap into anxieties that people have, and there were so many anxieties that were resonant in this film. Losing your identity, your livelihood, your means. I think there’s nothing more resonant than body horror because we all have those anxieties about our bodies betraying us, going wrong. So it just felt like there was a rich tapestry of things to tap into. So, the script. Then I had to pitch it to the guys.”

How much freedom did James Gunn and Peter Safran actually give you? And what was the one thing they told you couldn’t do?

I’m not sure they ever gave me anything I couldn’t do. When I pitched the project, I was very specific about what I wanted to do with it and where I wanted to take it, and they very much bought into what I said. I pitched some of the elements of the body horror and showed some quite graphic imagery. And I remember [DC Studios co-head] James [Gunn] looking away, and I thought, ‘Oh, is this a problem?’ And he was like, ‘No, I love it.’ 

Batman hangs over this film, even though he never appears. Was there a version of ‘Clayface’ in which Batman appeared?

If there was, and I don’t think there was, it was never in anything I ever saw. One of the things that appealed to me was the standalone nature of the story, like Joker. Like Gotham is a city of many million people. To play in the sandpit of is great. But if someone tried to crowbar in [Batman], it would feel inauthentic or trying to be cute. We shot in Liverpool, which is where Matt Reeves shot his last first version of Gotham for ‘The Batman,’ and you’re always so mindful of not replicating the iconography. We made sure we’re shooting different buildings or shooting things from different angles. 

Clayface is also an actor whose entire identity and livelihood depend on his face. How consciously were you making a movie about Hollywood’s obsession with beauty enhancement and physical perfection?

I think there’s an element there that’s baked in. But what attracted me was something deeper in the sense that as an actor, his face is his instrument. It’s not vanity necessarily. He’s just trying to get back where he was. He’s trying to reestablish his identity and his life and everything that he worked really hard to achieve, which for me is obviously much more relatable than just a vain actor. If it was a story about a vain actor, that wouldn’t interest me particularly.

By the end of this movie, do you want audiences to think of Clayface as a villain, a monster or a victim? And if they walk out rooting for him, have you done your job, or are you afraid for mankind?

I think it can be all of the above. He’s monstrous, but I understand his heartbreak. I understand where he’s coming from. I understand the journey he’s been on. You know the the sort of man inside the monster, So, I think that all those things can coexist.

If the next time we see Clayface, he is opposite Batman, who should we be rooting for? 

Clayface could beat Batman! He’s got quite a secret weapon.

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