Interview
WAMG Interview: Actress Ashlynn Yennie – Star of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE and ANTIDOTE
Ashlynn Yennie was born in the small town of Riverton, Wyoming. She studied acting at the New York Conservatory of Dramatic Arts. Her first feature film credit was when she was cast as Jenny in the cult horror film THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE. She subsequently appeared in the first sequel to that notorious film and has kept busy, acting not just in horror films, but showing wide range in a diverse variety of TV and film roles. Her newest film is the thriller ANTODOTE, in which she plays Sharyn, a young woman held captive in an underground medical facility where selected individuals are perpetually mutilated and then healed using a secret Antidote.
Ashlynn Yennie took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about her career, ANTIDOTE, and what it was like attending the premiere of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE II with her Grandmother.
Interview conducted by Tom Stockman May 5th, 2021
Tom Stockman: Hi Ashlynn. I am excited about the opportunity to talk to you. Let me tell you a quick story. About six years ago, I was sent a link to watch THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE Pt. 3. Then Tom Six, who directed all three of those films, was supposed to call me and we were going to have an interview like this one. Then about one hour before the interview, the publicist called me and told me that all interviews had been canceled. I found out later that all of the interviewers were giving him a hard time and giving him so much grief about his movie, that he cancelled subsequent interview, which is too bad. I liked all of the Human Centipede films and I would’ve had nice things to say to him about them. And I do want to talk to you about the Human Centipede films that you were in, but let’s first talk about your new movie that you are promoting, ANTIDOTE. I watched it over the weekend and was surprised how much I liked it. I watch a lot of movies and ANTIDOTE was full of suspense and surprises. It was gruesome and right up my alley. It’s kind of a wild movie and there you were right at the center of it. It was directed by Peter Daskaloff. Talk about what he was like and about being on the set of ANTIDOTE.
Ashlynn Yennie: It was interesting for me because my casting was a crazy story, very similar to what happened to me with the first Human Centipede. Similar in that how quickly I got the part and started filming. With ANTIDOTE, they had already cast the film and three days before they started the principal photography, the lead actress dropped out. I happened to have worked with the film’s Director of photography Lucas Pitassi earlier in 2019 on a short film. It was he who mentioned my name to Peter Daskaloff. I had been in consideration for the role, but the girl that they had hired was a name actress. Whenever you do an independent film, you want to get the biggest name that you can. She was a name actress and I am not. Lucas reached out to me and asked what my month of October looked like. He sent me the script, but didn’t tell me anything about it. The working title of ANTIDOTE was originally THE FACILITY. I read the script and thought it was so intense, but I wasn’t sure which character they were wanting me to read for, because there are several women characters in the script. I told him I thought it was a great script and whoever plays Sharyn will have an amazing time. The next day I had a phone conversation with Peter and Alexi Stavrou, another producer. That was on a Thursday, then Saturday I met everyone for coffee and we started filming on Monday. It was very fast for me. I wasn’t given a lot of time to really develop Sharyn. Everyone who had already been cast had the script for a while, so they came to the set more prepared and really had their characters flushed out. I really got to discover my character Sharyn along the way. Peter is such a cool director. He is from Bulgaria, with a thick accent. He is a jack-of-all-trades . He had made B grade movies in the 1990s for other people. He loves making movies. He rented a huge warehouse in downtown Los Angeles
TS: Are you an LA-based actress?
AY: Yes.
TS: And let me correct you. You are a name actress! You are a scream queen!
AY: Well, I’m pretty well-known in the horror community because my first film was THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, and that really threw me into the genre. But the actress they had originally cast for ANTIDOTE was from television. You have to know what you’re getting into when you film an independent horror film.
TS: You would know!
AY: Ha! Yes, and I tell this to people all the time. I did THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE when I was 22 years old. It was a similar story to ANTIDOTE in regards to how I was cast. They had already cast that movie. The girl that they had to play the role Jenni was fired, though I don’t know the details of why. Then they came to New York to audition more actresses. I got the part on a Tuesday and literally by the next week I was flying to Amsterdam for the five-week shoot. And I was trying to explain to people that I was going to star in a movie where my face was sewn into somebody’s ass. That was a weird time.
TS: Are you glad you were third in line in the centipede and not the woman in the middle?
AY: Yes, people ask me that all the time. Any position in a human centipede is not a fun position to be in, but Ashley Williams played the girl in the middle and hers had to be the worst, in the sense that she had to navigate people in the front and the back of her.
TS: Did you two flip a coin or something?
AY: No. Since she had already been cast, she had that part from the beginning. If I had not done THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, I would not have been as prepared to do a couple of other projects including ANTIDOTE. I learned what it takes to make one of these movies. ANTIDOTE was a very grueling shoot. Long days, and I think we got something really great out of it.
TS: Your character Sharyn goes through a lot throughout the course of the film. It’s a meaty roll that’s very physical and emotional. The character really goes through the ringer. What were some of the challenges in making ANTIDOTE?
AY: You’re right, it was physically quite a challenge. I had given birth to my daughter one year prior to filming. This was my first big role after that, I had done a couple of commercial and a TV movie but this was my first big part. So Peter was needing to string me up on wires and fly me through the air, and have me run through the woods and perform these stunts. I was really excited about doing all of the physical stuff because I was ready to get back into that world. It’s one of the reasons that I love being in horror films. You get to play so many different emotions, the full spectrum. Sharyn does go through so much. The biggest challenge for me was that she had this dicey past, but when she’s introduced, the audience doesn’t know those things. They are revealed throughout the movie. I love playing characters that are so different from me. She had so many layers and so many secrets, as does every character in this movie and those types of characters are always fun to play.
TS: It’s a grim and nasty film. What was the atmosphere like on the sat when the cameras weren’t running?
AY: It was pretty playful. We all got along really well, the crew and the cast. But there were long days of shooting and when we had to do an affect or a stunt or a sequence requiring a lot of blood, it was usually done in the first take. To reset something, like for instance when one character slices her throat, which we did, it took hours. Everyone was very respectful and serious when the cameras were rolling, but when the cameras were off, we all just became great friends. That doesn’t always happen when you make a movie. The whole crew had read the script and and were so into this project.
TS: What are the release plans for ANTIDOTE?
AY: It comes out on VOD and DVD on May 11.
TS: How has ANTIDOTE been received so far?
AY: So far the only people I have talked to that have watched it are people like you, who are big movie buffs or have a podcast or a blog or a website that they write for. Everybody who has seen it, even if they don’t love it completely, think it’s a really cool concept . It’s gotten a lot of great feedback. It will be interesting to see how the general public perceives it.
TS: Let’s talk about you for a minute. According to IMDb you are from Wyoming. How did you get into acting?
AY: Yes I was born and raised in Wyoming. My dad was an accountant and my mom was a stay-home mom. My mother was super creative and always supported whatever we were into. I did my first play when I was four years old. My preschool teacher noticed that I had a really good memory. That’s genetic. So I starred in a play and memorized almost 25 pages of dialogue when I was just four years old. From that point, I just started doing all of the school plays that I could do, and also local theater. We moved to Denver when I was in high school and I started doing local theater there. I did some commercials there too and made the decision that I wanted to become a professional actress.
TS: Who were some famous actresses that you admired and inspired you?
AY: Nicole Kidman off the top of my head. I also admire Kate Winslet and Winona Ryder. These are women that I grew up watching in my favorite films. So I knew young that I wanted to be an actress. I was also a dancer. My dance teacher knew an agency in Denver when I was in high school so I was hooked up with that agency, and started getting auditions. When I was 19 I was accepte to a film conservatory in New York. So I opted to go to New York first instead of Los Angeles. I wanted to study my craft. At one time I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pursue theater or film. But I did go to a film conservatory and I love everything about the process of filmmaking. I lived in New York for six years and then I moved to LA.
TS: Back to THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE. I showed it to my girlfriend the other day. She said that she had always avoided it because she thought it was going to be too disgusting. But she didn’t think it was so bad. I was blown away when I first saw it and reviewed it for my website We Are Movie Geeks in 2009. I raved about the performance of Dieter Laser as the villain. I know he’s passed away, but what was he like?
AY: THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE was my first movie. I had just graduated from the Conservatory and had done a couple of commercials. So this film was a big deal, being flown to Europe to appear in it. Dieter Laser was a method actor. He had performed in over 70 films. He has been an actor his whole life. He had been in the same theater company from age 17 to 70. The first day we met him he was so wonderful and sweet and he said to us that when he got on set he would become Doctor Heiter, and sure enough, he was Doctor Heiter the whole time. He never broke character.
TS: That must’ve been kind of scary.
AY: Yeah, imagine filming for an entire month with someone like that. The creepy way he looked at the three of us, we were his creation, his pet. I distinctly remember one day I was sitting in my dressing room, it was the day we shot the scene where he removed my teeth and all of a sudden my door opens a crack. Dieter pops his head and he just looked at me. Then he just smiled and slowly closed the door. He was so wonderful. We had a rap party after filming. He had to fly back to Berlin and I had to fly back to the states. He walked on to the wrap party and he was just such this joyful man. I was still a bit terrified of him.
TS: He was psyching you out. That’s a funny story. Did you ever do the autograph horror movie convention circuit?
AY: Yes, I did that for four or five years. The last one I did was in Germany in 2015. When THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE came out I was invited to quite a few of those. I did all of the Days of the Dead and Wizard World, and all those. You name it I was it, I was there. It died off after a few years.
TS: The cult following of both of the Human Centipede movies that you are in is quite deep. I’ve seen guys with Human Centipede tattoos. What do you think of all of that?
AY: I was at Texas Frightmare around 2013, and this guy had the drawing of the Human Centipede the Tom Six had done tattooed on his leg. He asked me to sign it and write the name of my character, then three hours later he came back and showed me that he had had my signature tattooed on.
TS: That’s amazing. You mentioned your mom earlier. How did your family and your friends back in Wyoming and Denver react to you being in this insane movie with such a perverse plot?
AY: It’s crazy to think about. I think if my daughter would come up to me at age 20 and tell me she’s going to star in a movie where her face is sewn up against someone’s ass, I would not know how to respond. I remember calling my mom and telling her that I was going to star in this movie about three people who are sewn together. She wanted more details and I told her it was three people that would be sharing one gastric system. Then she understood. But if THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE had not become this big cult film, things might be different. But my mom and dad were both super supportive. When I did THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE Pt. 2, my mom and her mother came to Los Angeles to attend the premiere with me I warned them that this one was going to be so gnarly. Everything they didn’t see in the first one, they were going to see in the second one. They were both grossed out, but they still loved it.
TS: Ha! I’m picturing you sitting at the premiere of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE Pt. 2 with your grandmother! That is crazy.
AY: It was crazy, but she was cheering me on. I have the best family.
TS: Sounds like you do. What’s next for Ashlynn Yennie? What projects do you have in the pipeline that you can tell me about?
AY: If you don’t want to watch a scary horror film, I do have a Lifetime movie airing on Mother’s Day call the BURNING LITTLE LIES. Very Lifetime-y, very fun. ANTIDOTE comes out on the 11th, and this summer, I will be filming my first paranormal film and I’m very excited about that. That film is called THEY WATCH. I’ll be filming that in York, Pennsylvania for about six weeks.
TS: Sounds like you’re keeping busy. It’s been super nice talking to you. Good luck with ANTIDOTE and all of your future projects I’ll get this interview up before it premieres next week.
AY: Great! Thank you. I look forward to reading it.
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