Stepping into the role of Martin, the revolting adversary at the center of The Homo Centipede II (Full Sequence) , British stage veteran Laurence R. Harvey not merely had big shoes to fill—he had the odd task of stapling mouths onto asses. Something tells us that they don't teach that in either motion-picture show schoolhouse or actors' workshops.

First, allow'due south explain those "big shoes." Harvey's predecessor in the now-ubiquitous Human Centipede franchise, German creeper Dieter Laser, delivers such a coldly menacing performance in Dutch author-director Tom Half-dozen's 2010 freakshow that his grapheme, the surgeon Dr. Heiter, upstages the actual lips-to-sphincter monstrosity he creates; well, depending on who you ask. Every bit he dreamt up his much crazier sequel, 6 envisioned the second villain as more of an everyman, a forty-something social outcast who lives at home with mom and fantasizes about copying the acts in his favorite pic, The Human Centipede. It's a completely different character than Dr. Heiter, and Half-dozen needed the correct human for the sick task.

Now onto those ass-stapling requirements. More specifically, Vi was looking for an actor who's non agape to run laps around Laser in terms of an extremely disconcerting behavior. And he found precisely that in Harvey, whose previous credits—children's television receiver in London, too as theater—are devoid of any characteristic film piece of work, or scenes where he bashes skulls in with a crowbar. Or masturbates with sandpaper. Needless to say, his work as The Human being Centipede II baddie, "Martin," required Harvey to stretch himself every bit an histrion.

The event of that actress dedication is one of the most agonizing horror movie rogues in years, a nasty guy who'southward even sicker than Dr. Heiter. In reality, though, Harvey is an incredibly squeamish guy, equally well every bit an admitted genre picture show nerd. Complex chatted with Human Centipede's latest mankind-and-blood monster most what drew him to the part, his approach to raping a chair in the audience, and the joys of pretending to dismember people in front of a camera.

Interview by Matt Barone (@MBarone)

Complex: Earlier working on the sequel, were you a fan of The Human being Centipede?
Laurence Harvey: Basically, my agent rung me up and said that there were these people who wanted to practise a motion-picture show called The Human Centipede, which he hadn't heard of, actually. He was kind of unsure almost it. I remembered hearing about the offset Human Centipede from when it was playing at Fright Fest in London. Information technology was ane of the films that I wanted to become and come across, but I couldn't get to Fright Fest. So it was something that was on my radar, but at that stage it was still a tranquillity, cult hit. It was still on the festival excursion, rather than having been released anywhere. It didn't accept the cultural means that it does now, with South Park and all of that. [Laughs.]

It was this interesting-sounding, quirky independent horror film that seemed to take something imaginative about information technology. I knew that I was auditioning for the atomic number 82 office, so I was convinced that a character such as myself who'southward done mainly kids' TV and phase comedy wouldn't get the function. [Laughs.] I've done some progressive roles in theater, simply I would accept thought that a picture show manager wouldn't have known that—that wouldn't have been on his radar. I went to the casting, simply immediately earlier my casting, Tom bundled a screening on a kind of Monday forenoon for people to see the film. So I went to see the picture, and throughout it I was thinking, "Is this a expert pic? Or a bad film?" [Laughs.]

I couldn't effigy out if [The Human Centipede] was intentionally bad in a campy style, but I was riveted. The first film doesn't show anything, though. Being that they were casting for a sequel, I wondered how he…. I wasn't that interested in being in something that was just a rehash of the outset 1. So I went upwards to the casting, and I idea, A, I've got pretty large shoes to fill up later on Dieter's performance [every bit the first movie'south villain], and, B, I was wondering how Tom would exist in person. And so we met and got on like a house on fire—information technology was the best casting experience of my career.

We just kept finding all of these similarities between how our minds piece of work; like, for case, we both hate cheese. [Laughs.] We both have a beloved for Japanese splatter films, as well as classic European art-house films, like [Ingmar] Bergman. Information technology was that kind of high art and low art combination that only fabricated me really become for it with this picture show. When you lot meet Tom, at that place'due south such a bounciness, a artless energy to him, that you merely want to go for it and do everything he asks of you. I'k actually pleased that Tom chose me to do it.

Were you lot able to read the script prior to the audience? It seems like the script would scare most actors off before they even arrived at the casting location.
Well, having seen the get-go film that same morning, I knew what the centipede was all well-nigh. At that phase, in that location wasn't a hard copy script—it was however in Tom's mind. But he kind of knew the whole A-to-B, scene by scene narrative, equally well as photographic camera angles and lighting and so on. He had this idea of it being a horror moving-picture show with a social realist element to it, and a satirical element. I was really impressed past the detail of his recounting of the narrative. Cipher shocked me in his telling of it; it wasn't until subsequently, when nosotros were actually filming the rougher scenes, that I thought, "Whoa, wait a 2nd." [Laughs.]

When I spoke with Tom Six, he told me the story most how you raped a chair during the audition. So, the obvious question is: What the hell were you thinking?
[Laughs.] Yeah, the chair. Information technology was all about incrementally becoming like Martin in the audition. Knowing that Martin lives with his mother, I went back to a lot of stresses that were brought about by my ain mom, though it's not quite the aforementioned thing as Martin's mom. [Laughs.] One scene during the casting asked me to bash Martin's mother'south head in, and I just couldn't get to the right place. I used to live in London, merely the housing situation I was going to move into fell through, so I was left with my stuff in storage. I moved back in with my parents for what I thought was going to exist a brusque fourth dimension, just information technology's been a few years now. I'm kind of fed upwards with living with my folks; they treat me like a kid.

When [the director] suggested to practise the rape scene, I kind of thought, 'Well, it'd exist stupid to just wave my crotch in mid-air'... So I just flipped a chair over.
I've got a few hundred DVDs of art-firm and exploitation films, so I know what would happen if my mom threw out my drove of violent Japanese films. [Laughs.] The scene where Martin's mom rips upwardly his Human Centipede fan-book is exactly like that, so I channeled my ain feelings and really went for it, but obviously there wasn't a real head for me to bash in during the casting, which was disappointing. [Laughs.]

Tom was really into everything I was doing. He suggested that I exercise the rape scene, in guild to kind of challenge. I but thought, "Well, it'south in the script, I'grand going to have to do it eventually, so I might as well do it the best I can now." So when he suggested to do the rape scene, I kind of thought, "Well, it'd be stupid to just wave my crotch in mid-air." [Laughs.] I come up from a operation art background, and one of the approaches to objects is to utilize them in ways that they aren't normally used. There were lots of chairs in the room, so I just kind of flipped one over; the legs basically gave me something to concord on to. [Laughs.] The seat on the back of the chair was at the correct meridian, only like it'd be if somebody was kneeling down and there was a bum sticking upward in the air. So I just went for it similar that. I think Tom was a bit shocked, but also impressed that I actually did information technology.

Martin is a character that requires an actor to really go for it at all times. He's as well a total downer of a grapheme—the first thing we hear his female parent say is, "I've decided to kill u.s.a. both."
Yeah, and so you lot kind of feel like she says that quite a lot. It's non the best of upbringings.

When yous are on set, did you lot have to stay in character as Martin at all times? He's such an extreme and creepy graphic symbol, I'd imagine that information technology'd exist odd for your co-stars to casually hang out with you one time the camera starts rolling.
Well, I used quite a lot of my own life experiences in Martin, then information technology wasn't similar I had to switch into a totally dissimilar person; with Martin, I but had to play up my own social anxieties. I get on really well when there'south simply ane or two people at a tabular array, just if at that place's about seven, I start to feel a fleck intimidated. But so if at that place are 500 people effectually, I don't feel that bad-mannered. And so, basically, any number between three and 500 people is when I feel intimidated. It doesn't brand any sense. [Laughs.] It's kind of like being afraid of heights when you're standing on a chair, but not when yous're standing on a cliff. Yeah, I'm kind of a contradictory person.

On gear up, the co-stars had all been bandage at the aforementioned identify, and so they all kind of knew each other. They had a bonding procedure. The mode we shot the film, we shot all of the stuff within the warehouse at the end of the shoot. So before then we shot each of the scenes when Martin bashes them over the caput and throws them into his van individually, then I met each of them gradually, ane-by-one, and that was interesting. There was no reason to ignore them, but I kind of felt split up from them, anyway.

Now that the film is out there and it'southward receiving extreme reactions all across the world, you must have to attend functions where the attendance numbers fall in between that three-to-500 range. How has the newfound attending been for you?
Then far, I'm lucky that I haven't been recognized on the street. Just, yeah, at the recent Fantastic Fest in Austin, it was interesting to watch the people's reactions. Too with the printing, if it'due south a adult female on her ain coming to interview me and Tom, she's actually wary of me. [Laughs.] There was this one interviewer who wouldn't await me in the centre until we'd been talking to her for about ten minutes, and by that point we'd manage to mollify her into agreement that we're non insane. [Laughs.]

There was so much blood everywhere, it looked like we were in some performance fine art piece with chopped-up cattle carcasses.
It'due south funny, after the first screening, I noticed that certain people wouldn't come to me and say hello, but a couple days afterwards I'd run into them and then they'd come up up to me and say, "After the picture show, I didn't want to approach you, but I've been watching you," which is kind of worrying. [Laughs.] "I've been watching you lot and you seem like a prissy person." And that's nice. I'm an thespian, and then obviously I'thou not the same person equally Martin.

Your performance as Martin already seems to be working its way into the pantheon of all-fourth dimension great horror film villains. Even the critics who've bashed the flick seem to praise your functioning. You seem to exist a fan of horror movies, and then how does it experience to potentially earn a spot alongside the great icons of the genre?
The idea of condign an icon is really, actually cool. [Laughs.] Simply it'd be nice to do something outside of the horror genre next, to show that Martin was but a performance and not a one-trick-pony kind of thing. I've always had a fondness for farthermost cinema, whether it'south in the horror genre or it's pretentious art-house stuff or whatever.

I honey the one-time motion-picture show actors like Peter Lorre, who managed to be both a horror icon and a weasel-y kind of thriller actor, as well. So hopefully I can steer the course into having 1 pes in the horror army camp and one foot somewhere else.

Once the pic goes off the rails, then to speak, in the last human action, inside the warehouse, you do some incredibly disgusting and fell things to your co-stars. How was it shooting scenes where you take to hammer a guy's teeth in, or cut someone'south knees open? Does the thought popular in your head of, "Wow, I tin can't believe what I'thousand doing right now"?
Well, you're talking to somebody who grew up reading every issue of Fangoria! [Laughs.] I love all of the great gore films, and I really wanted to have prosthetics in this pic, for me personally. But I didn't become them—everybody else got them, but at to the lowest degree I got to work on them. At least I got to slice them upwardly and pop kneecaps out. For me, that was the most fun part of the moving picture. Being in the warehouse, there was so much blood everywhere, it looked like we were in some functioning art piece with chopped-up cattle carcasses.

I was telling Tom 6 how The Human Centipede Ii somehow manages to exceed all expectations, in terms of going into the experience anticipating the awfulness on screen and still being revolted to no end. Everything that takes place in the warehouse falls directly into that revulsion.
Yeah, Tom, myself, and everyone involved with the film didn't make a flick for the audition to go into the cinema, spend two hours, and leave maxim, "Well, I killed a couple of hours, so I gauge I amend become and do something else." No, nosotros made something else entirely. What I thought we'd made at the end of the shoot was a sort of splatter-one-act that was this satirical thing, but and so I saw the black-and-white images afterward Tom made that modify and heard the soundscape, and I thought, "Wow, this is really a much tougher and stronger motion-picture show than I idea it was."

I think taking abroad the color does that; instead of it existence this fun kind of gore-fest, it becomes something a lot more than harder-hitting viscerally. A horror film should practice a number of things: Information technology should stupor y'all, unsettle you, and merely pummel you with cruel imagery, in order to make its point. And I remember this moving picture does many of those things.

That'south 1 thing that no 1 can accept away from Tom Six or these movies: Regardless of how much you hate the films, there'southward no denying that Tom Six set out to truly horrify the audience. And not enough horror filmmakers do that these days.
Yeah, I'g and then sick of that kind of PG-thirteen horror, or those slick remakes of either foreign films or classic horror pictures. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has this clunky dialogue and lacks a real sense of humanity or fifty-fifty a sense of reality, whereas the remake just feels like a slick thing that's meant to be a fun ride, just there's more "fun" than "ride" in it. I recall Tom really wants to make something that no ane has ever experienced before, or experienced in quite that way. I like that about both the first film and this ane. He's a very intelligent and idiosyncratic managing director.

Rest assured, I tin't imagine anyone ever making a Human being Centipede downwards the line.
[Laughs.] No, Tom Cruise'due south motion picture company isn't seeking out the rights to this picture at the moment.

Interview by Matt Barone (@MBarone)