‘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.
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.”