Hi Dieter and welcome to Nottingham. It's fair to say that The Human Centipede films have provoked outrage. Number three for example, has castration, torture, rape, cannibalism, murder, never mind the mass suturing. Why did you decide to be a part of all this?
I honestly had some heavy problems with the ‘100% Political Incorrectness’. When the script arrived I took it a 100% too seriously. I didn’t see the pitch black, vitriolic comic-strip. I didn’t discover the possibility to make the most “cartoonish cartoon” out of my character Bill Boss, so that nobody could take him too seriously. To go with him as far over the top as I could imagine and thereby kick all kinds of fascists, racists, rapists, machos and other assholes into their balls by laughter and ridicule. My beloved director Tom Six managed to open my eyes in a four hours meeting after I already had several times strictly refused to play the part. Thank God, Tom never changed the script but also never gave up to try to convince me. And then we started our private rehearsals which I call “table dancing” at our usual meeting point the Sheraton restaurant in the airport of Amsterdam to create together that larger than life creature, Bill Boss.
You play the most deranged prison governor ever imagined. How does he differ from your last Human Centipede role?
Bill Boss is an always yelling monster child with a German accent that sometimes even I don't understand. An over assimilated German-American, more American than any American ever could be. Born and grown up at a pig-farm in Schweinfurt “swine ford” Germany where his grandfather taught him the art of castration. Bill is a stupid idiot. A mean chickenshit bastard. A sadist, racist, rapist, murderer etc. without any redeeming qualities. Bill Boss is the worst sample of the most dangerous animal on earth - a human being. On the meta level he is a desert snake from beyond the beyond, the ageless Creature of Evil in the disguise of a prison warden. He is the absolute contrary to Dr. Joseph Heiter who is a pure, super intelligent fascist, regarding other people as subhumans, as insects, so to speak as human centipedes. But Boss and Heiter have one thing in common: They both try to play God.
I understand you're a method actor. How do you get inside the head of a rapist and mass murderer?
Nobody is born like that. So I have to invent some turning points in his life. I have to invent only for me, for my emotional basis, for my inner self-talk what made Bill Boss to that person. Where are his hidden injuries? What’s his inner justification-talk. I have to love him. I have to share his self-pity because nobody regards himself as a bad person. Therefore I call him a monster child. Because these injuries mostly happen at a very early age. Loaded with a lot of these feelings, talking silently to myself like an athlete in competition, I go to the set and try to transport these emotions directly into the scene.
How would you defend the films against critics who demand them to be banned?
We are living in a slaughterhouse. While eating dinner and candies we see that every night on TV. But we believe we are safe - until our heads will roll. The Human Centipede trilogy by Tom Six is a Movie Centipede of pure, pitch black horror-thriller-comedy-entertainment. The one “digestive” meta tract of this Movie Centipede is the world as a slaughterhouse in a grotesque comic-strip. In my perspective these are political films with a lot of philosophical and artistic potential under the disgusting-entertaining surface. I love all Three Creatures of Evil: Dr. Heiter is an Alien out of the realm of Fascism - Martin is a Creature out of the Underworld - brilliantly played by Laurence R. Harvey - and Bill Boss is Evil from beyond the beyond.
Are the Human Centipede films purely entertainment or do they have any serious message?
I think messages are very boring and patronizing but they are very essential. Therefore they must be implicitly hidden. Only then they can develop their subliminal power. The messages in the Human Centipede Movie Centipede 1-3 are very well hidden in its one “digestive” meta tract. Therefore it works for all social classes. All kinds of people can and do enjoy these films. That wouldn’t work if there is nothing else in the box than plain entertainment. All people read hidden messages either intellectually or subconsciously.
Has starring in these movies effected the way the world sees Dieter Laser?
Oh yes it changed my career. I got less offers from Germany. But the world has started to recognize me a little bit. I never did horror before and I’m astonished about the love and warmth from the really sweet ‘Horror Family’.
What's it like working with Tom Six in the director's chair?
Working with Tom is a dream. We are very well prepared when we start shooting. By our private rehearsals I know precisely what Tom wants me to play and he knows precisely how I will play it. So we can work almost without words, avoiding rehearsals on the set as much as possible - short arrangement with the camera and shoot! - to catch the very first vibrations. Tom and his sister, our brilliant producer Ilona Six, are able to create a very calm, silent and even tender atmosphere on the set - there is the pure joy of passionate work in the air. Tom doesn’t change a bit on the ‘dictator’s’ chair: A gentleman, very polite, with a classic dandy aura, who knows exactly what he wants to do.
Would you agree The Human Centipede films are a form of pornography than can put unhealthy ideas into the minds of the audience?
It’s said sex and crime sells. I think poo sells as well. There is no comedian in the world who can do without any poo or fart jokes. Maybe a lot of people have an anal retentive trauma or at least a taboo feeling about it. I don’t think that you therefore could call these films a form of pornography - on the other hand I learned from a critic during a radio interview about The Human Centipede 1 that “ass to mouth” is a sexual practice. So it seems to depend: If you have already shit in your mind you might as well get unhealthy ideas.
What advice would you give to young people who hope to break into acting?
Do your own thing, find your own tools, do not look left or right, accept that you might never ever have a career - if you can live with that and the urge does not vanish, then go on full throttle.
How will The Human Centipede movies be remembered in a hundred year's time?
For thousands of people all over the world these movies are already classic masterpieces and pure cult! Only some critics may need a little bit more time but I think much less than a decade.
The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) is showing at Broadway Cinema on Saturday 4 July 2015. Dieter Laser and Tom Six will be attendance for a Q&A after the film.
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