Yes, that was Aaron Paul in “Clayface”: The story behind the “Breaking Bad” alum’s cameo
Yes, that was Aaron Paul in “Clayface”: The story behind the “Breaking Bad” alum’s cameo
Nick RomanoFri, October 23, 2026 at 9:00 PM UTC
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Tom Rhys Harries on set of ‘Clayface’ with director James WatkinsCredit: Parisa Taghizadeh/Warner Bros. Pictures ReleaseKey Points -
Clayface director James Watkins explains that brief surprise cameo at the end of the film.
The filmmaker discusses how the outlook on the Matt Hagen character changed — and with it, this cameo.
Watkins calls the larger club-scene fight “the dark glee of the film.”
Warning: This article contains spoilers from Clayface.
If you were paying close attention to all the shapeshifting chaos from the finale club-scene bloodbath of Clayface, then you caught a glimpse of a surprising (and brief) celebrity cameo.
As Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) makes his way through Vesuvius to take down mobster Markos Szabo (David Dencik) and his girlfriend, Mia Torrez (Joana Ribeiro), he confronts the gang member who killed his father, Jimmy “One Nut,” by transforming himself into his deceased old man. The actor playing Matt’s dad is Aaron Paul, the Breaking Bad and Westworld veteran soon to be seen on Fallout season 3.
Paul’s casting was leaked in the months leading up to the release of Clayface. “He has a real brief Easter egg kind of moment,” director James Watkins, also known for Speak No Evil and Eden Lake, confirms to Entertainment Weekly.
The final cut of Clayface features flashbacks to Matt’s life growing up in the slums of Gotham City, well before he becomes a rising actor in Hollywood. Seth Thomas can be seen as a younger Matt, while Ishtar Currie Wilson was cast to play his mother. However, additional flashbacks were shot over the course of a few days with Paul playing the abusive father.
Aaron Paul at a ‘Fallout’ season 2 screening event in LondonCredit: Dave Benett/WireImage
The team wasn’t sure how much of that material would be used. Eventually, after further discussion, it was largely cut. A brief blip of Paul as Jimmy in that impressive fight sequence is the last remnant of what almost was.
“In terms of trying to figure out the character, it was, How much is Matt defined by his past and how much is he an everyman?” Watkins explains. “At one point, we were looking at it and thinking, Is it the ‘sins of the father’? But actually, as we worked on the script, I thought that notion of revenge was more universal and more relatable to all of us. It doesn’t matter whether you’re carrying a trauma or any of that. If we’re slighted, we carry this sense of being wronged and we all want to do something, but generally in life we can’t do anything about it and we’re powerless.”
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Watkins feels that sentiment is at the root of audiences’ collective love for revenge movies, citing John Wick and The Equalizer. “With Matt, it’s not that he’s a bad guy trying to be good,” the filmmaker continues. “He’s a decent guy, but then like all people, we all have primal impulses within us that can be dangerous, whether that’s impulses for love, whether that’s impulses for retribution.”
With that change in perspective came a change in approach to Paul’s character. Instead of haunting Matt through flashbacks, Matt uses the ghost of Jimmy as a weapon against those who wronged him. “He’s probably also saying, ‘No, I’m not my father,’” Watkins posits.
Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen in ‘Clayface’Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
The director calls that larger sequence in the Vesuvius club “the dark glee of the film.” It’s the point when Matt is flaunting the full range of his shapeshifting abilities. It was a balance — between the levity of a playful Matt mingling with the dancing patrons and the brutality of slaughtering his foes — that Watkins worked hard to strike.
“I hate it in movies when a normal person suddenly becomes like a Navy SEAL and they suddenly can be this ninja,” he says. “I kept saying in that scene, Matt’s superpower is his ability to shift and to change. It’s his ability to disguise...and then earning a kind of complicity with the audience. The audience being locked in with Matt and enjoying it, saying we’re all together on this ride, then when he starts going too far, it puts the audience in a queasy spot.”
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The casting of Paul in Clayface, even for such a brief role, reunites the actor with Max Minghella, playing Gotham P.D. Detective John Borrelli. The two worked on the 2016 mystery-thriller The 9th Life of Louis Drax. Watkins says that film could have “possibly unconsciously” made enough of an impression to cast them both for the DC Studios horror. “They’re both amazing actors and really nice people and a delight to work with,” he adds.
Clayface is playing now in theaters.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
