The Human Guys

“A week after we talked,” notes Dieter Laser of his initial meeting with Six, “I suddenly got small and afraid. But then I got the script and I discovered, ‘Oh boy, there’s so much possibility!’”

Signing on to play sinister surgeon Dr Heiter, Laser – a veteran of German cinema – agreed to a role that was bound to illicit outrage from audience members. But Laser, like the financiers, could see what Six was trying to do.

“The [plot] is a good marketing thing that will create discussions and anxiousness and everything. Under the surface I discovered why he chose a German. I regard the film as a grotesque [parody] about the Nazi psyche.”

Notes Akihiro Kitamura, who plays victim Katsuro: “I’m the lucky guy. I don’t really mind having my face attached to a female’s butt. I don’t mind.”

Still, he admits that “Dieter’s a pretty scary guy. I thought, yo man, that’s going to be awesome to have some hot chick attached to my ass. But because it’s a horror film setting, it was kind of a scary feeling, actually.”

“For me there was only one actor who could play the role of Dr. Heiter,” says Six. “I saw a couple of DVDs where Dieter Laser was playing and I think he's absolutely a brilliant actor. So we flew to Berlin to meet him and we were very excited about what he would think about my story.

“And I told him in detail and he absolutely loved the idea because he's just as crazy as I am and in a couple of hours we had a deal and he was the one.”

Next: The Human Girls