Better Call Saul actor Todd Latourette admitted to cutting off his own arm so he could pose as a war veteran to book acting roles.
“I severed my hand with a skill saw,” he told KOB4 in an interview published on Monday, October 29. “The state of my mind was a psychotic episode.”
Latourette told the outlet that he is bipolar and he was off his medications when he cauterized his arm 17 years ago.
The Consumed author told people within the industry that he was wounded overseas. He was hired for several projects after the incident. “The film industry obviously took a different angle. That I was different,” he explained to KOB4. “And so they liked that.”
Now, Latourette feels the need to come clean about his lie. “I was dishonorable. I’m killing my career by doing this,” he said. “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.”
He gave this advice to those who are suffering from similar issues: “The power is in your hands to take your medication in the morning or at night. So that … this discourse of my life doesn’t need to necessarily be yours. Because it happens quick.”
Latourette appeared in a season 4 episode of Better Call Saul, which aired in September. He was also on Longmire in 2014 and in the 2009 film The Men Who Stare at Goats, which starred George Clooney.
