Clayface director James Watkins talked about how difficult the movie’s production was, including suffering a personal loss of his father during filming.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Watkins opened up about how his father passed away very suddenly while he shot Clayface.
Yeah, [DC Studios were very accommodating to me]. We were in the thick of it, and my dad died very suddenly. As you can imagine, it was difficult. James [Gunn] and Peter [Safran] reached out and afforded me time and were very kind at a point when there was a film to finish. So I’ll never forget that. They were very classy about it.
For some Bat-fans, Watkins losing his father parallels The Batman Part II’s Matt Reeves having a “family emergency” and stepping away from filming. It seems like the studio were very supportive of the directors who have a personal emergencies that need to be dealt with.
James Watkins on the Prosthetics Work
James Watkins went on to speak about the intricacies of filming the infamous face melting scene in Clayface. Despite what some viewers might think, that was all done with prosthetics. The prosthetic work gave extra pressure to the Matt Hagen actor Tom Rhys Harries to nail his performance in as few takes as possible.
[Filming the face melting scene] was never one go, but in prep with the ADs, the question was always, “How many takes have we got? What’s the reset time? How long will it take to shoot this?” And usually they’d go, “It’s a 45-minute reset.” And then we were like, “Is there anything else we can shoot during that time? Can we turn the camera around on something else?” But often, when they say it’s 45 minutes to reset, they’re usually giving themselves a little bit of flex. It was usually 30 minutes to reset.
Beyond the practicalities of budget and time, it’s 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.
Why No Batman Cameos
Watkins also confirmed that there was never any real conversation about inserting a Batman cameo in the movie. To him, it would have been too distracting and taking the focus away from Clayface’s story.
… anything bigger than [a quick Batman reference], I just felt that this is Matt Hagen’s story. The idea of trying to crowbar in another character would feel too cute or too tricksy and somehow inauthentic.
For way more on Watkin’s interview, including some surprising and teeny cameos and Batman easter eggs, check out the full interview here.
Source: TheHollywoodReporter.com
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