By JOSHUA “PROMETHEUS” SCAFIDI
Ashlynn Yennie, best known for her role as “Jennie” in Tom Six’s The Human Centipede (you might remember her as the unfortunate rear section of the eponymous ‘pede), is back with a new film, ANTIDOTE in which a young woman, Sharyn (Yennie) is held captive in an underground facility where individuals are subjected to horrific medical experiments, then healed using a mysterious substance. We recently had the chance to chat with Ashlynn about her role in the new film, which is out now on VOD and DVD from of Uncork’d Entertainment.
ANTIDOTE was written by Peter Daskaloff and Mathew Toronto. What can you tell us without spoiling the film?
Oh, my goodness! Peter, [who’s also] the director always says that it’s a morality tale. I kind of agree with that, in the sense that it’s about these characters that have these very dicey past lives, things that they’ve done. Maybe it was a regret or something that wasn’t so great and it’s about what if what you had to experience that horrible thing that you did – over and over. How would you deal with that, and is there redemption? Does that exist? Are sins forgiven? We don’t know, so it’s a really complex story about what can happen when people are faced with situations where they do something they didn’t mean to and then [having] to pay the price for those things forever, and ever, over and over.
What attracted you to the role?
It’s such an interesting story, so it came really quickly to me. I had worked with the director of photography earlier in the year, and one night in late September, he sent me an Instagram message like, “Hey, what does your month of October look like?” So, I read the script and I didn’t know what he was having me read it for, but I wrote back and said, “Wow, this is a really cool script, man. Whoever plays Sharon has their plate full. What’s the deal with it?” He was like, “So, you’re down?” I said, “Wait, what?” It was super bizarre.
Then he goes, “Our lead actress quit, and we start filming on Monday.” This was on Thursday night. He says, “The director knows who you are, he knows I’m contacting you. I’m going to set up a call for you guys tomorrow.” So, I chatted with Peter and we worked it out. I met him on Saturday and [we] started filming that Monday. This was the first big project that I did after having my daughter, she was almost a year old. She was ten months when I started filming this movie. I was really itchy to get back into something real, with a lot of meat on it. I’d gone back into the commercial world and I did a TV movie, but I hadn’t done anything with big weight.
I was super excited to get thrown to the wolves with this film, because I’m in about ninety percent of it. There’s some really grueling stuff I went through in the movie, but I was excited to do stunts, and they hung me from wires. Stuff that you don’t always get to do, and the character goes through the whole spectrum of emotions. It was really fun to get to play all of that. I guess that’s what attracted me the most, the really heavy load that I would be carrying.
So, basically, you had three days to prepare.
Essentially, yeah. I got the script on Thursday night and started filming Monday, so I had the weekend!
That’s crazy. What did you do to prepare?
They had an amazing crew and amazing cast already in place, and the cast had already met each other. So, they were very familiar with each other and had the script for a while. They came to set very well prepared, which helped a lot because I didn’t have tons of time to develop [Sharyn]. The first thing I did was I asked the producers for the shooting schedule, so I know what I need to focus on, week by week. I just broke it down week by week, because it was a really thick script to do. Then I took it and did one little piece at a time.
It was interesting because we shot so out of sequence that one of the first things that I shot was escaping the facility. But I hadn’t been to the facility yet, so what am I escaping from? When you shoot out of sequence you really just have to draw on your imagination and maybe personal experience to bring that character to life as much as possible. When we got to the facility it was much easier.
Peter built it from the ground up. It wasn’t a soundstage or anything like that. The facility where we shot was his own idea, his own imagination, but it was just one long hallway and one side of it had rooms. The other side was basically our backstage. Filming in an environment like that was very beneficial because you’re confined to this one hallway, which already makes you a little antsy, which adds to your character wanting to get out. It was a very cool experience.
Speaking of Peter Daskaloff, what was it like working with him as a director?
It was a joy. I ended up becoming really great friends with him, and I’m helping him produce another film that he’s going to shoot next year. Also, I helped him cast a short film he’s shooting. We ended up having a really great working relationship.
The movie deals with this heavy concept of having to repeat your biggest mistakes over and over again. What did you guys do on set to keep it light?
We all got along really well, so we could just goof around, and play around between takes. When it came to filming, everyone was really respectful. The pit crew, the cast, everyone was on point with how they wanted everything. It was serious, most of the time. Then once we would go out to eat dinner or lunch, that’s when we would let our guard down and shake it off. There wasn’t tons of goofing off between takes, but there were definitely times of just having fun, making an Instagram post, or something.
The biggest thing was when we had to do a special effect, because Peter is into practical effects, you kind of have to get it in one take. To set up takes hours. So, you have to be really on point. We would rehearse for a while before we did the gag, because when you let the blood loose, it goes everywhere, and it takes hours to reset. When we did that stuff, everyone was just on point.
We didn’t get the hanging, when I get hung, the first time. They hung me quite a few times. I think in total it was six times. Six different times is what I mean. Within those six times, I could have been hung three, or four times in there. Either the gag wasn’t working, or it wasn’t right, or Peter wanted it to be better – or different. I think at one point I was like, “I’m done [with this].”
Are you a fan of horror?
Here’s the thing: I was not a horror fan before I did a horror film. My first feature film was a horror film. The Human Centipede got a lot of notoriety and threw me into the genre. So, suddenly I became a scream queen, but I didn’t know that much about the horror world. I didn’t watch a lot of horror films. Now I do, because I’ve been in this world for over ten years now, and I think it’s such a cool community to be a part of. I love making horror films now. I tell people that movie really set me up to do movies like ANTIDOTE where you’re doing a lot of heavy lifting, and a lot of really intense stuff. I love playing characters in horror films because you get to go through the spectrum of emotion that you don’t always get to go through in other films.
I have to ask: when you signed up for The Human Centipede, did you know what you were getting into?
I didn’t know the movie was going to become what it did. Tom [Six] knew what it was going to become, but the rest of us were just making an independent film. It was my first project ever, so I didn’t know anything. Then when it came out, I was like, “Wow! Okay, so people are into this.”(Laughs) But, no – I didn’t have any clue.
What are you working on next?
Later this year I have a paranormal film that I’m doing, and we’re shooting out in Pennsylvania over the summer. That’s my first paranormal horror film, so I’m excited.
You can see Ashlyn in ANTIDOTE, out now on VOD, and DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.
