Advertisement
Advertisement
Fame and celebrity
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
Actor Todd Lawson LaTourrette (left) pictured with Bob Odenkirk in a scene from AMC’s ‘Better Call Saul’, said he was in the midst of a psychotic episode 17 years ago when he cut off his right forearm with a power saw. Photo: AMC

‘Better Call Saul’ actor Todd Lawson LaTourrette admits sawing off own arm, posing as wounded war veteran to further career. It worked

  • Todd Lawson LaTourrette says he was in the middle of a psychotic episode when he used a power saw to chop off his right forearm
  • He then pretended to be a war veteran to get acting roles – but says the guilt has been too much and he wants to come clean

A US actor who has appeared in AMC’s Better Call Saul, the western TV drama Longmire and the 2009 movie The Men Who Stare at Goats says he cut off his own arm and pretended to be a wounded veteran in hopes of furthering his acting career.

In a video interview with Albuquerque’s KOB-4 TV, Todd Lawson LaTourrette, who is bipolar, said he was off his medications and in the middle of a psychotic episode 17 years ago when he cut off his right forearm with a power saw and cauterised it himself.

“I don’t want to say the word ‘insanity’ because the mentally ill – we’re so far from insane,” he said tearfully of his mental state at the time. “We are your brothers, your mothers, your sisters. And we hurt.”

LaTourrette later fashioned his own prosthetic forearm and hand. He also began lying about the cause of his disability, saying he sustained the wound in combat.

Actor Todd Lawson LaTourrette. Photo: IMDB

It worked, he said. Casting directors started booking him for roles.

“The film industry obviously took a different angle,” he recalled. “That I was different. And so they liked that.”

He added, “They trusted me that I was exactly who I said I was, that I was a war veteran. I was hired because I lied.”

According to IMDB, LaTourrette’s first role was in the 2002 horror film Unspeakable, starring Dennis Hopper.

He also appeared in the 2008 Toby Keith movie Beer for My Horses, and the following year, he was on-screen again in the George Clooney film The Men Who Stare at Goats.

His most recent role was during the fifth episode of the current season of the Albuquerque-based Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul.

But the lie weighed on him to the point where he felt had to come clean.

“It’s been so difficult to live with,” he told the TV station. “It’s been years since I told that lie.”

“I was dishonourable. I’m killing my career by doing this,” he acknowledged, adding that he doesn’t expect his admission to be met with forgiveness. “If anyone thinks this was for personal edification, that’s not the case. I’m ousting myself from the New Mexico film industry. And gladly so, just to say what I’ve said.”

Prequel producers hope to better ‘Breaking Bad’

LaTourrette says he hopes he can serve as a cautionary tale for other people with bipolar disorder.

“The power is in your hands to take that medication in the morning and at night so that this discourse of my life doesn’t necessarily need to be yours. Because it happens quick.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Actor sawed off arm in psychotic breakdown
Post