When writer-director Carmen Emmi’s visually striking and emotionally resonant feature debut, Plainclothes, world premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, the film garnered a raft of enthusiastic reviews and won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for its acting ensemble. Leading that award-winning cast is Tom Blyth (The Gilded Age) who plays a young undercover cop, Lucas, who is assigned to patrol a shopping mall restroom to entrap the gay men who cruise there. Already racked with anxiety about his own sexuality and the difficult predicament he finds himself, things are complicated when he falls for one of his targets, silver fox Andrew (played by Looking’s Russell Tovey). Set in upstate New York in 1997, the tense and moving drama moves between the past and present, as Lucas grapples with his unresolved feelings.
Ahead of today’s theatrical release of Plainclothes, Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey spoke exclusively with The Queer Review’s editor James Kleinmann about forming their on-screen bond, why they wanted to devote their time to making the film and the toll that playing these emotionally intense roles took on them.
James Kleinmann, The Queer Review: congratulations on your beautiful performances in the film. I’d love to take you back to when you were first deciding whether to get involved or not. What were some of the things that enticed you to say ‘yes’?
Tom : “It was the script to begin with. I loved the script and flipped over it. Then when I found out that it was a debut feature I couldn’t believe it because it felt so finished. It felt so precise and imaginative. It was something I hadn’t seen before, which these days is hard to find with so much stuff out there. It’s hard to find scripts that feel both deeply personal and ready to make.”
“Then I met Carmen and I thought he was a beautiful human being with a big heart and a big spirit and a precise vision. He’s someone who is very anxious because he cares so much and yet at the same time there’s a confidence there because he knows that he’s making something that matters. He believes in himself and at the same time he is bubbling with the need to make it. Those two things together are very endearing and make you want to rally around him and get it made with him. So for me, it was the script plus Carmen that made me want to be involved. Luckily, he saw me as Lucas and we built the character together a little bit and then Russell came on board. I’ve been a massive fan of Russell’s for years and so I felt very lucky to get to work with them both.”
Russell Tovey: “I felt incredibly lucky to come on board too. Again, it was the script for me too. I normally go off dialogue. I know within about three or four lines of a character’s dialogue if I want to say those words and I want to be that person. That was straight away on this. Then I met Carmen as well. Just to mirror what Tom said about how brilliant and inspiring he is and how much you suddenly feel excited and caught up in his energy. You’re like, ‘I want to be part of that energy!’ Then Tom and I connected and it was great.”
“I’m still slightly reeling that we shot this very quickly for about £200, then we left it and we were suddenly at Sundance! We’ve been doing festivals all year and now here we are for the cinema release. It was such a beautiful job to do and then to be living it out to this level is a dream.”
Tom: “We all said when we were making it that even if no one saw it and it gets no accolades we’d still be really happy because we made something we’re really proud of. It’s a film that I’ll watch for years to come and see new things in every time and care about forever. So the fact that it’s getting so much love is surprising and amazing.”
Russell: “It’s a film where people stop you after seeing it and they want to break it down with you and you’re not exhausted or fatigued by that, you’re energized. It doesn’t happen often where you’re so connected to the project and the characters and in love with them that when you share that with other people who are coming to them for the first time it’s joyful.”
There’s so much going on visually that I’m sure when you saw it yourselves for the first time it was surprising. There are so many different layers to the visuals, it’s experimental isn’t it?
Russell: “Yeah, it’s very experimental with all of the camcorder footage. When we were shooting, Carmen would pull out the Hi8 camera and to start with I was like, ‘Is this for the behind-the-scenes DVD extra footage?’ But then when you see it put together, you’re like, ‘Wow!’ The vision Carmen had from day one for the tonality of what this piece was going to be is unique. When I got what he was doing, I was like, ‘Let’s do some more camcorder footage! What else can we shoot?!'”
Tom: “You just get on board with it. The way Carmen shoots is so playful. He’s playing like you would if you were a 15 year old with a camcorder, but he’s doing it with—albeit a small budget—a budget and surrounded by people who want to support his vision. The whole thing felt very much like we were all on board with playing in Carmen’s sandpit. He’s so beautiful as a filmmaker because he’s in no way bitter.”
Russell: “Yet! This is his first film.”
Tom: “Yeah, after working with the two of us he might be like, ‘I hate this life. This is my swan song!’ But really, he’s so positive. He’s got an almost childlike playful quality about the way he works which is so refreshing.”
When it came to your characters, was there anything specific that helped you to unlock them or to find your way into to playing each of these men?
Tom: “Music was a big one for me on this. I often had my headphones in between shooting scenes.”
Russell: “Carmen would play music into the scenes for rehearsals. Then while we were actually shooting those long lingering looks or tracking shots we would have incredible music played in too which is a very fast hack into emotion.”
Tom: “Which we had to have because we shot this in around 17 or 18 days.”
Russell: “Also, when you play a character with an accent—as you can hear we’re both British playing Americans—that sound sometimes defines how you walk, how you sit or how you hold yourself. The accent sits somewhere else in your body and it resonates differently. I always find that doing an American accent gives me different energies, movements and physicalities which I wouldn’t normally have in my own voice.”
Tom: “Yeah, I totally agree. I felt quite lonely making this film, actually.”
Russell: “Until I turned up!”
Tom: “Until you turned up. No, but even though we had a lot of fun making it, I have reflected on it since, that I would go back to my little funky hotel in Syracuse and it was dark and cold. It was one of the roles that I found to be the most taxing psychologically because Lucas is going through it and he’s so anxious, living this double life. So even if on the weekend we went out for a drink or something, I’d get back to my hotel room and I’d feel anxious. I couldn’t help but take it home with me a little bit. Which I think ultimately was what I needed to do to play the part. It definitely took me a couple of months to shake that off and feel back to being calm again.”
Russell: “If you’re an instinctive actor and you commit to any role that’s bound to happen. I think there are two different types of actors; technical and instinctive. I class myself as instinctive and I certainly would do you. If you live with that character and you’re inhabiting their emotions, you’re cheating your body.”
Tom: “Yeah, your chemistry.”
Russell: It’s like you’re cheating your molecules. You’re going like, ‘This is fight or flight. I’m having a panic attack. I’m not safe.’ And your body’s going, ‘Oh, shit, let’s sort you out’. Then they call, ‘Cut’, and you go, ‘Right, okay, that’s over’. But your body’s going, ‘Whoa, hang on a minute!'”
Tom: “Yeah, that’s true.”
Russell: “Then you carry that with you and that takes time to leave you if you’re committed to it. I think that’s a generosity of actors, that we allow ourselves to slightly fuck ourselves up for stories.”
Tom: “For your viewing entertainment!”
Russell: “Yes, for you James!”
Thank you for doing that! There’s such a beautiful connection between you both on screen and such great chemistry. Just the way that the characters look at each other is moving and intense. What did you enjoy about creating that dynamic?
Tom: “I will say—kind of contradicting what I just said—that we did have a lot of fun. Even though when I was on my own, I felt very in my head and anxious and lonely, when I was with Russell and Carmen and the crew, we had so much fun. It was a really joyful set to be on. When Russell first came we got a few days rehearsal time together doing the intimacy scenes and the falling in love scenes, which was lovely. I’d say that both of us are actors who try to take the work seriously, but not ourselves too seriously in it.”
Russell: “I think we’re definitely both unserious people, but serious about the work.”
Tom: “It was fun and really easy to get along. Like I said, I’ve wanted to work with Russell for years, so I was like, ‘Throw me in. I’ll play!'”
Russell: “Yeah, I think we both just wanted it. We both committed to these parts and this story. We really connected with each other and all you really want as an actor is a scene partner who wants to go there as much as you do. I think we found that in each other, for sure.”
The premise of Plainclothes made me think of George Michael’s music video for “Outside”. Especially with the film being set in 1997 and that video came out in 1998. It was an amazingly defiant and fun response to people trying to shame him, wasn’t it? And shame comes into this film a lot.
Russell: “I think Carmen had that in mind, certainly, because that was a cultural moment. The world was projecting onto George Michael that he should feel shame; ‘You’ve been caught, you’re a bad person.’ But he was like, ‘I’m not. You targeted me. I don’t feel shame. This is what I want to do. I’m going to go out and enjoy my life still.’ Some people were like, ‘Whoa. This isn’t the consensus. You’re meant to fit this box.'”
“I think that’s a fascinating story and you’re right, this notion of shame is fundamental to this film. It underlines most of the characters in it. I think everyone in it carries a level of shame, especially our two characters. Mine is entrenched in it, it’s ingrained in him, and I don’t think my character, Andrew, will ever shake off his shame. I don’t think he’ll ever allow himself to be free, whereas I think Lucas’s shame is more the traditional shame for a young queer person to go through.”
Tom: “Yeah, a young queer person who is also a police officer.”
By James Kleinmann
Plainclothes is now playing exclusively at New York’s IFC Center—with Q&As with filmmaker Carmen Emmi and Russell Tovey opening weekend—expanding to select theaters nationwide from Thursday, September 25th, 2025. The Queer Review’s editor James Kleinmann will moderate the post-screening Q&A following the 7:05pm showtime on Saturday, September 20th at IFC Center. Tickets are available at ifccenter.com.
