From the moment he read the script, Tom Blyth knew he had to be a part of Plainclothes.
The movie, a feature debut for writer-director Carmen Emmi, follows the Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes star as Lucas, an ‘90s undercover cop tasked with entrapping gay men for public indecency — a job that becomes complicated when he falls for one of his targets, played by Russell Tovey.
In an interview with Variety, Blyth revealed how he got involved with the film. “I was filming Season 2 of my TV show, Billy the Kid, in Calgary, Canada,” he said. “I’d been reading a lot of scripts at that time, and this one was the first and only one where I sat up in my seat and went, ‘Holy sh*t, I have to do this.’”
“Carmen flew himself up to Calgary in the middle of a snowstorm to walk through the script,” Blyth continued. “We went out for dinner and drinks, and it was such a good creative match from the get-go that we were like, ‘Let’s do this together.’”
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Blyth also said that casting Tovey as his love interest was partially his idea — but that writer-director Emmi beat him to it.
“Carmen and I were doing work on the script and work on the character of Lucas and building it together and we were brainstorming about who could possibly play Andrew,” Blyth explained. “I texted Carmen, ‘F*ck, what about Russell Tovey?’ Carmen texted back saying, ‘He’s on my dream list. We might try and offer it to him.’ And sure enough, they did and he responded.”
Blyth added that they had a chemistry read, but only as a formality. Plainclothes has yet to premiere — it’ll do so this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26 — but based on Blyth’s description, the movie’s racier scenes will put the duo’s chemistry on full display.
“This was genuinely intimate stuff. It was really intimate, really vivid, and [intimacy director Joey Massa] was incredible,” Blyth said. “It felt very organic. It felt like we rehearsed it in a way where I think Russell and I both were made to feel confident and comfortable enough that we could lead it. I think it works best when the actors feel emboldened to be able to take control of the choreography and make it feel organic.”
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