Tom Rhys Harries Readies for ‘Suspicion’
Sometimes, a meme says it best. While trying to summarize the appeal of watching an entire series in one sitting, Tom Rhys Harries recounts a graphic that he’d stumbled across online.
“I saw this funny meme that was like, ‘Cinema: hey, do you want to watch a 10-hour movie?’ Like, f–k no. Then, ‘Netflix: how about if we do a 10-hour movie that splits it up into 10 parts?’”
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Harries stars in the latest binge-able Apple TV+ series “Suspicion,” an adaptation of the popular Israeli series “False Flag.” “Working with streamers at the moment, they just have the scope to do a 10-hour film and the budget that they’re able to free up to do sequences that are pretty cool,” he says. “There’s a lot of content out there at the moment, and it’s hard to stand out; things kind of seem to come and go.”
The actor is sitting in a quaintly accessorized room, displaying framed photographs on a credenza behind him, flanked by a guitar and vintage badminton racket. “This is not my doing, this is my partner’s doing, but I’ll take credit for it,” Harries says of his surrounding decor.
Harries is at home in London for a few more days before heading back to Saudi Arabia to finish filming for the Gerard Butler-led action film “Kandahar.” Then he’ll be back in London for spring before he resumes rehearsals for a stage production of “The Seagull,” which shut down after five performances at the start of the pandemic. The return to live theater is underscored by loss. Seun Shote, one of the actors in the production, passed away unexpectedly last year; the play will pay homage to his memory when it reopens in June.
“When we go back to that play, it will have been over two years since we last did it,” he says. “It’s not an insignificant amount of time. All of us change over time, don’t we? You have different priorities and different things come into our lives. I’m interested to see how the whole piece has changed. Because if you have a collective group of people, a new adaption of the text and a director who’s kind of hot on his feet, it will change.”
With “The Seagull” on hiatus, Harries’ schedule opened to other projects, and he soon landed in the ensemble cast for “Suspicion.” The series began filming in fall 2020 and wrapped last summer; despite the long shoot, Harries describes production as “a blur.” The actor, who struggled with long COVID-19, also credits the presence of an on-set medical team for creating a supportive environment for the cast and crew.
In “Suspicion,” Harries stars as Eddie, a young college student. He and several other British citizens are accused of kidnapping the son of a U.S. businesswoman (played by Uma Thurman) who is up for an ambassadorship to Britain. Technology is at the crux of “Suspicion”; the show touches on freedom of speech, social media, how truth is twisted through media and politics and concern for the environment.
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The series filmed in both the U.K. and in New York, and production highlighted points of departure between the two cultures. “I love shooting in New York; everyone’s rough and ready to go. We shot longer hours in the States; you guys work longer hours than we do.”
The 29-year-old actor is a first-language Welsh speaker, and was raised in a family “steeped in Welsh culture” and music. “I always thought I would go into music and then I kind of stumbled into acting,” he says. Harries enrolled in the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, but soon left after he was cast in the film “Hunky Dory” with Minnie Driver. Most recently, he starred in the Netflix series “White Lines,” which premiered in May 2020.
The actor has also recently built up relationships in the fashion world, working with brands including Barbour and Dunhill. “A lot of this is my partner’s work,” he says. “I’ve been dressing practically for the better part of my 20s. And then only recently over the last couple of years have I started paying attention to brands and cuts I like.”
Facing downtime this spring before heading back to “The Seagull,” Harries has plans to pick up the guitar in the corner of the room; he’s also learning how to play the piano.
“Ultimately, I’d love to release some stuff, but I’ve been kicking that barrel down the lane for forever,” he says. “I’ve got a couple of months now coming up that I think I should probably knuckle down and try and get something done.”
Courtesy of Joseph Sinclair
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