Russell Tovey and Tom Blyth go cruising in tense teaser for queer cop thriller
Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey appear in ‘Plainclothes,’ a film from writer-director Carmen Emmi (Page 1 Entertainment)
Russell Tovey and Tom Blyth are cruising in a new teaser clip from upcoming gay cop thriller Plainclothes.
Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) and Tovey (American Horror Story: NYC) play the main leads in the Carmen Emmi-directed film, which is set in 1990s New York.
Plainclothes follows Lucas (Blyth), a promising undercover cop who is tasked with entrapping and arresting gay men for lewd conduct. Things take a turn when Lucas finds himself drawn to – and falls in love with – one of his targets, Andrew (Tovey).
Ahead of Plainclothes premiering at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, IndieWire shared an exclusive clip of the film.
In the scene, an anxious looking Lucas is seemingly alone in a public bathroom. Entering one of the cubicles he comes face-to-face with Tovey’s Andrew, who asks Lucas how he is and all Lucas can do is shake his head nervously.
“No? Ok.” Andrew asks, the rest of the question hanging in the air.
The scene ends as Lucas shuts the cubicle door.
Blyth previously told Variety that he was keen to do the film as soon as he read the script and found himself to be a “creative match” with Emmi from the “get-go”.
Discussing the sex scenes in the upcoming film, Blyth said he and Tovey made use of an intimacy coordinator.
“It was really intimate, really vivid, and Joey [Massa, the intimacy coordinator] was incredible. It felt very organic,” he told the outlet.
“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.”
Blyth went on to say that he was unaware that the sting operations depicted in Plainclothes happened as late as the 90s when he first accepted the role.
Speaking to Variety, he said: “I knew about it happening up until the ’50s, but I think I wrongly and naively assumed that it died out. One of the first things Carmen did was send me the article that inspired the story from the early 2000s. I remember being really shocked by how recent it was.”
How did this story make you feel?
