Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 180: An Interview with Laurence R. Harvey

Episode Date: June 23, 2015

In this special Last Podcast, Laurence R. Harvey, star of infamous The Human Centipede 2 and the emotional center of The Human Centipede 3, talks with us about how he got the part of Martin, various feces-related matters on the respective sets, and the type of people who make the movies he likes to be in.

I'm the product of a recent breakup so I've lost everything in my home. The only thing I have is I have a John Wayne Gacy painting and I have a bed. She didn't take the painting though. Isn't that strange? She didn't want to be reminded of you. Let's see here. So should we just kick off the show? Let's kick it off.

Welcome to the show everyone. This is the last podcast and I'll have to interview series. The beginning of hopefully more interviews to come. Obviously Marcus is here, Henry is here, I am Ben and today we're going to be interviewing Lawrence R. Harvey, the star of Human Centipede 2 and the most recent star of Human Centipede 3. Yes! Yes, I'm so happy you're here.

You understand as another short fat actor you are an inspiration, I want to be you man. Henry has modeled his career and diet after you. You've won modern day Peter Lorre, you know, man, you are really similar to Peter Lorre. That's really cool. That's all. Again, thank you so much for joining us today. My question is all right. So first question I add is the story that I had heard about your audition for Human

Centipede. Is that a very, is that chose for Human Centipede 2 that you, you had to rape a chair? No, I chose to rape a chair. Oh, aggressive choices, I like it. Well, you know, Tom wants me to play certain scenes and they were going to more and more extreme. Then he said, show us how you would do the rape scene and would you like to attempt the rape scene?

I said, yeah, sure, why not? And then I come from a performance art background in which we often use kind of inanimate objects as kind of stand-ins for people. I just flipped this chair over, it's about the right height, and it's not as embarrassing as thrusting into thinner, so, so yeah, I went for it. That's awesome. It's a lucky chair, you know, chairs just wake up and they're like, well, I'm going to work today, and hopefully somebody has sex with me, and this chair headed stream

come true, which is amazing. That's how I start every day. Yeah, absolutely. So you have a performance arts background, did you ever expect to become such an iconic character in this niche market about ass to mouth horror movies? Well, honestly, because we talked about after Human Centipede 2 is that like you became an immediate sort of horror, like, it's an immediate horror character you can recognize. Martin was awesome.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Well, you know, I always, I kind of thought I'd be more in kind of more artsy kind of productions, but, you know, I took on the Human Centipede 2 because I liked, I liked Tom when I met him and he had a range of different references, including some art house references like Salo and so on. And so, you know, I do think that the Human Centipede 2 is a kind of, you know, it's an

artsy film, you know, it's like, but, you know, in a more kind of undergroundy way, like, like a raise a head or thunder crack or something like that, you know, so it's some. We talked about, when I first saw it, the first thing that popped into my head was that it is a commentary on horror movies in general, that people, they think this idea that people that watch horror are maniacs and that they watch it and that they, as soon as they see somebody get killed on screen, they're going to go kill somebody out in real life and it's a, it seems like a satire of that.

Yeah. I mean, it certainly attacks that kind of cause and effect argument, I think. And I think the grossness of Human Centipede 2 is a way to kind of show how ridiculous that idea is. Right. My other question, I had another question, okay, so you started doing performing arts, so you were a theater person, performance arts, so you were a... I come from a fine art background.

That's amazing. So how did you decide to jump from doing theater to film? From just art to film. Well, explain to me, what's the difference then? Well, I started out as a painter. Okay. And then was kind of influenced by people like Spaulding Gray and Laurie Anderson and so on.

And then started doing kind of arts, performances in galleries and so on. And then artists that I was working with started doing characters for children's TV. So then I got into children's TV in the mid 90s, just after I left college. And then from there, I then got an agent and then I started doing theater and short films and then a decade later, I'm doing the Human Centipede 2. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I understand. I feel like that is what's happened to my career as well.

At one point, I was doing, I did a couple of commercials just because I have big tits like on my body. I was like, I walk into a room and the idea is that my body was painted and then I lift my tits, but there's a hole underneath the tits. And so when I walked in and I had the biggest tits in the room, I felt like a pretty lady for the first time. It must be nice, Lawrence, to get interviewed by somebody who, you know, who has a more controversial career than your own, which is really nice.

That's incredible. So Martin was such an iconic character. The way that you were able to, the way you pulled off the kills, you just remembered the look, the image. What were you thinking going into that character to make him stand out and make him so memorable in the way that, you know, Jason, when you see somebody, when you see Jason walking, you know it's Jason, Michael Myers, you really put yourself in that level of, of, of the fit.

You transformed physically into a very horrific character. Yeah. Well, I mean, because of the casting, Tom had said he didn't want Martin to talk very much. I ended up not talking, and then Tom reworked the script so there was no dialogue in it. And so I started approaching Martin as trying to have a weight to him and kind of in, in order to have this like little guy kill these people, you have to kind of make him somehow threatening and a presence.

So therefore I used a little stillness and I was thinking about Martin as a kind of this immovable force or, you know, so he, you know, he's the, he's the terminator in his own way. A chubby little terminator, there's no stopping him. He's, once he's got an idea in his head, he's going to go for it, you know. Right, right. Are you happy now doing as, because I'm sure that Human Centipede now has opened the doors to all these other horror films that you're doing now, like, like, like, look in your

list, it seems to, you know, because you, you're also worked on a film that'll be coming out at some point, probably in 2016, Frankets and Created Bikers, maybe for the makers of Dear God Know, which was awesome. But are you, are you happy now being in the genre? Like, because once horror gets you, it's like they keep you. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm happy. Well, you know, the genre has always been one of my favorites anyway.

So I kind of grew up with it and so on. So it's, I'm happy with that, but I'd like to do stuff outside of the genre as well. Yeah. You know, the first film I did after Human Centipede 2 was a documentary about the artist you're German called Spectacle. I mean, it's my friend Robin Deacon directed the documentary. And then, yeah, the rest of it has just been based on who's interested to work with that I've met and, and, you know, luckily it's, I've been asked to do some great films by

people that I find interesting, like Astron 6, like the Dear God Know guys, you know, you know, I mean, you know, even though Dear God Know is, is like a bullets and boobs and gore kind of thing. The guys that really care about film and care about film culture and James is just such a brilliant, you know, you can talk to him about any aspect of film. He's a big Bergman fan and he's a big sex center of the 70s fan, you know, so. But I feel like if you were a range, yeah, if you're a fan of Grindhouse, that's what Dear God Know is.

Dear God Know is just a perfectly made homage to Grindhouse films. And they all kind of have to have a background and understanding a lot of different type of film because it's, it's all referential. Yeah. Yeah. My, this is another sort of question. All right. On set, for something like Human Centipede 2, or how, even also like in the sequence

in Human Centipede 3 when they're all outside, you know, when it's finally revealed and they're all out there, what is, what is the temperament on set? Like is it tense or is it like, or are they well taken care of? Like the people in the centipede, or, you know, like, like, how are they taken care of? Like what, what is it like being with a bunch of people who are asked a mouth for hours? Yeah. Well, Tom tries to keep things light on set anyway.

So he's always kind of, you know, he's not intense. He's light and chatty and, and tries to keep things fun. And also the people in the centipede are in, are only in the centipede for as long as necessary. As soon as we can get them out, they're out, you know. So if the shots only shows a certain section of the centipede, it's only that section that's going to be in there. Okay. Yeah.

He's not like, the entire sequence must be there. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So. That's amazing. So. You start to suffer.

Cause I kept thinking about that. I was like, cause the, and then human centipede three, of course the chain is, it's 500 long. Yeah. Um, and it's, it's quite impressive when you see it in the big wide shot, which I get. That's the, the goal. And I was just thinking about it. It's like, man, I just meet just being a big man, just strapped to the ass of another big man for like six hours.

Yeah. But enough about your sexual fantasy. Yeah, exactly. Rock hard. Well, I'm tired. I don't know how you were able to be on set and not get fully aroused, Lawrence. That is some hot stuff. There's no doubt about that.

That's amazing. How was it working with Bree Olson? She was a porn star there. We had that sad thing where you both were like, I know that woman. Yeah. We're like, no, we don't know her. I was unaware of her, for sure we say. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I was the only one on set that didn't know she was a porn star. And they're all because they're all like, Miss Olson. Yeah. Elson's a bit sweaty and a bit, a bit too attentive. But in part three, you played a different character. And you know, as Martin didn't speak in part three, your character spoke quite often. Would you like to bring Martin back in a, in a, in a future movie?

Well, I really enjoyed playing Martin. And if, if Tom had the idea to do something with, with Martin, further with Martin, I'd be up for it, but I think Tom's, now he's fine, now he's got his centipede of centipede films. I think that's going to be it for, for now. So yeah. It's not one of those winky, winky, we're at the end of this type thing, like, oh, and then all of a sudden we're going to get a human centipede for with Martin takes man

hat. Oh, that would be amazing. That's one of the things I love about your, your performance in human set of P twos that you look like you're having so much fun, specifically when, when all, when the laxatives work. And it looks like you're directing a symphony when everybody starts shitting. Yeah. Right.

I was kind of stood there and doing this and then Tom says, right, blow a raspberry. I was like, blow a raspberry and it's like, oh, okay. Here I am, I've trod on the stage of the national theater and I've performed in gallery throughout the festival throughout Europe and America. Now I'm here blowing raspberries to shitting people, but the same works. So, so yeah, you know, it really does. I remember being truly, because we watched it and we did, we, we are review of it. Well, we did the review.

It was just watch it and it was just as going like, oh, yeah, and Ben's roommate actually yells like, it sounds like y'all are fucking out there. Yeah. He doesn't know what sex sounds like. That should never sound like people watching human centipede too. I'll tell you that you're doing something wrong if your sex sounds like that. What's the poop made of? There's so much poop in these movies, there must be a big poop budget on two because we

had this girl who was a vegan who only ate dried food, not cut food. Really? Is she a Pomeranian? Is that a dog, isn't it? Yeah. Um, she, she, she made this kind of concoction of like hazelnut spread and, uh, it was various kind of nuts and chocolates. Oh, kind of sounds very good, actually.

It was good. Yeah. Everyone kept eating it, you know. So actors were getting in trouble for digging into the poop. Yeah. Where's the poop? We need to make more poop. What would you guys, but so again, like on set, would you say like the feces were they

trying to be nice or was it just being like, we need more shit? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, when, when the last stiff works and it goes through the last, uh, girl, the actress, uh, Emma, uh, I can't, uh, man, when it really goes through the last actress, Emma, the special effects guy had, had this kind of cannon, uh, effect. So it had this kind of next to her, like underneath her, and it goes splat against the wall.

Yeah. And that was the shit cannon. Uh, so everyone was called the shit something. That's great. Where's the tub of shits, where's the shitspoon, where's the, yeah, I mean, at some point, you must get fairly desensitized to the, uh, to the work that you're doing and everything just becomes normal. The shit cannon and all those things.

Yeah. Well, you know, also we had a great DOP who, um, whenever I was before the camera, he'd also, he'd always say, come a little bit more shit around his mouth. Just very super polite and says, I'm sorry, but if you can, I'm just a bit about his lips. Um, oh, um, if you could eat somebody's shit, who's shit would you eat? This has been Henry's big question that he's been sitting on. I'm surprised you waited this long to ask it, Henry. Who's your idol?

This is my team beat. This is my team beat question for you. If you could eat someone's shit, who would it be? Oh, uh, only if they should, I'd eat my girlfriend's shit if she shot Golden Nuggets. Yeah. Oh, there we go. That's a perfect answer. That's really beautiful.

And she's just off camera. She's like, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for saying that. Um, how is working with Dieter Lazer and, and see, and he got, he gets quite dramatic in, in a, in a, in a set of beat three. What was happening in human set of beat three? What was his direction for his character?

Bigger. Yeah. Oh, you could tell that. It was definitely bigger. Um, well, you know, Tom, um, you know, as he did with me during part two, Tom worked out a lot of the character with Dieter before we arrived on set kind of thing. So Dieter had this all kind of worked out, which, um, like every, every single scene or how he's going to perform every scene, uh, and, and it was basically like this force

of nature going through it. Yes. I could like, cause I've, I've been in things like that where you watch someone else. It's like, I was like, they are all just getting out of Dieter's way. Here comes Dieter. I was like, all right, here he comes. You know, as you go through the scenes, you see that it's like a tag is, you know, we're like a tag team, uh, everybody, everybody's, uh, everybody's acting styles against Dieter's.

It was, uh, one person comes in, you know, Robert's versus Dieter, then, you know, versus Dieter, then me versus Dieter. Honestly, you come out great in that movie. Like a really good, like, in terms of like, I, you know, we always get our fun looks when I have to be like, I was like, he is the emotional center of human centipede three. You know, he's just like, it's very, it's a lot of fun. Yeah. Absolutely.

It was a, uh, yeah, three was a very, very, very fun movie for sure. Different. This is the problem. I'm single. A lot of castration. A lot of castration. Castrate them. Yeah.

If you only see one lifelong film about castrate male castration this year, go see human centipede three. That's the tag. My co, also, um, that was pretty funny. I will tell you though, I could have done with another scene of him cutting somebody's balls off. Yeah. We were cheering pretty hard when he cut that man's balls off.

That was pretty good. But that's what we're looking for. This is where your audience, such a great gross close-up as well, you know, so funny. It was perfect. And then of course at what were the, um, there's a super, there's a, there's a, there's an edible, uh, thing in human centipede three that I believe it's supposed to be female clitorises. This is supposed to, dried, pickled clitorises. What were the clitorises?

Yeah. What were they made of? The clitorises. They were, they were shipped in from Africa. It's what tribal leaders eat. What's left from female genital mutilation. That's great. Yeah.

So you guys, you guys, that's great. We don't want to have to see that. It's the realism. I think that's really important. People fake shit nowadays and that makes me really upset. I was reading, uh, I'm from Wisconsin and I was reading it, uh, in an interview. Thank you so much. I got out.

Thank you so much. But I read that you don't like cheese, that you don't like to eat cheese. I don't hate it. This is very controversial. I'm upset over here. Literally. Do you have a question or are you just berating? I'm not berating.

Why? What's wrong with cheese? Well, you know, it's rancid milk. It smells like Satan's cock yoghurt. It's, uh, it's kind of, uh, it's horrible. It's evil. Evil. I've, I've been to America many times.

They don't have cheese. They're plastic that they chuck on top of burgers that's, that's not cheese. It's a country built on cheese. France is a country built on cheese. Holland's a country built on cheese. America. Yeah. You are cutting deep.

No, we're built on the blood of the people we found here. Oh, I see. Cutting cheese to you. Um, this has been awesome. Yeah. By the way, what, uh, what projects do you, uh, are you working on right now that you're really inspired by? Uh, I just want to shoot, um, redacted, I mean, it's only a short, but it's with Tristan

risk again. Okay. I'm a, uh, pregnant, so I created bikers. I would just see him. She's awesome. She's, she's, she's great. Yeah. So I mean, you know, I loved her as a Beatrice in, uh, American Murray.

Um, we've just, this will be our fifth time working together. Yeah. Um, cause we did a shot called call girl. It was our first time together. And then ABC's the death too. And then we both shot, uh, Ulyllamel's new film, the Boguman reincarnation. It's a restarting of the, uh, the Boguman, uh, franchise. And how would, uh, you know, we have, uh, last podcast on the left here, obviously

we have some very, very fun fans and some outgoing fans. Has there been any interesting experiences, especially in the horror genre, when you're a celebrity in this genre, um, you meet some of, uh, the more interesting people emotionally disturbed. That's what we're trying to say. Uh, yeah. Well, I have a pretty famous fan online who is just, well, a stalker basically stalker Australia.

He's, uh, uh, yeah, just, uh, if anybody's on Facebook or Twitter, they, they know me. Yes. So I'm not going to give him any publicity. No, don't give him publicity, but you know, you can flip this guy to run your website or something. That's kind of the idea. That's what you have to do to get, you have to employ these people. Yeah, but it, it'll just make it all about his sexual fantasies of eating my Snickers.

Oh, I see. He feeding me KFC on a bed at night. That's something. Right. So you've got your own Martin. He is very much a Martin. Yeah. I thought Martin was just an emergency figure and then, you know, yeah, one turns up for

real. I mean, I feel like it's a lot when you, when we research stuff all the time, it's like these, all of these characters are real. It's like, you know, just serial killers alone. You know what I mean? You forget that they're walking around and one point in Richard Ramirez was just a guy who was like a regular at a convenience store. Um, who are, do you, do you enjoy researching any true crime or serial killers like that?

I would love to know if you have a, a person that you're most interested in. You know, I don't really, uh, research true crime things, but, um, I, I, you know, there are certain cases that I find interesting like that Fred, uh, and Rose West case in the UK. And also the, the Japanese cannibal who ate his girlfriend when he was, he hates his Dutch girlfriend when they were both studying at the Sorbonne. Yes. And then they did the advice documentary on him, which was really excellent.

He's meant to be in jail and then the, because his dad works for a master or one of the big Japanese car companies, he gets them transferred to Japan and then he's supposed to be in an asylum and then they release him and now he's a celebrity. So, wow. Oh, he's famous. But what doesn't show you love somebody? He wrote a cooking book. Yeah.

He did. Oh yeah. In his comic books and stuff based on his life. And then he did this thing where he was, uh, having sex with a porn star for three days for this reality television show where a guy hangs out with a porn star for three days. And in the end, they told her who he was and she started crying and stuff. And because it's like Japanese television, they're all like, oh, I just love it. They think it's hilarious.

Different kind of humor. Different kind of humor. Very similar to ours. Yeah. I guess so. Um, all right. Well, I think, is there any other questions, Henry? I'm, I'm, this is great.

I really, I like seeing the inside world of this because I know like a lot of times people get like all weird about the human centipede films, but I think I understand it's like what they have references and they are, they are made by people that are not a bunch of maniacs. It's like it's, it's artists at work that are trying something. Yeah. I mean, the first time I met Tom and you know, seeing the references to Sallow and 70s police he is in, in human centipede one and just talking to him these, you know, he's so widely

read and sort of knows a wide range of cinema and you know, the same with James on Frank the Sound creative bikers and you know, these are interesting films made by people that are interesting and, and committed to, to making art, you know, it may be gross offensive and, and, and disgusting art, but yeah, it's rock and roll, man. Hey, that's fun. Exactly. I just, I'm just hungry for that poop. Yeah.

I just, I'm gonna go get it. Nutella and almonds and all that. Yeah. I just want to get a big tube of Nutella and to choke on it at the airport. Yeah. Maybe you could get into that business. The Martin sells poop sticks. Don't, don't do that.

That was amazing. Martin's poop sticks. Don't start shilling it out, man. It's huge. It's just Nutella. Nuts. Anyway, thank you so much for being here, Lawrence. We really appreciate it.

An amazing work. Thanks for being such an incredible actor and, and willing to take the risk that you did in human centipede two and three. Thank you. And you, you definitely the modern day Peter Laurie. That's, that's, that's right on the money. Yeah. Again, thank you, man.

Hail Satan. Thank you for joining us. Thanks, Lawrence. Thanks. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye.