Pretty much every episode of Better Call Saul is filled with equally unique and interesting characters of all shapes and sizes. This includes Todd Latourette, a local actor in New Mexico who played the role of “Skell” in the season four episode “Quite a Ride,” in which Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) branches out to try and find new markets for his increasingly problematic skillset.
As viewers may recall, Skell had a prosthetic hand. That’s because Latourette had lost a hand as the result of what he had previously claimed was a war wound. Yet as Albuquerque’s KOB 4 revealed this week, the actor isn’t actually a veteran. And instead of losing his right hand in combat, he actually cut it off himself during a period of time when he wasn’t taking his medications for bipolar disorder.
“I severed my hand with a skill saw,” Latourette revealed. “The state of my mind was a psychotic episode”:
“I was dishonorable. I’m killing my career by doing this, if anyone thinks this was for personal edification, that’s not the case,” says Latourette. “I’m ousting myself from the New Mexico Film Industry. And gladly so, just to say what I’ve said… The power is in your hands to take your medication in the morning, or at night. So that, this, this discourse of my life doesn’t need to necessarily be yours. Because, it happens quick… it happens quick.”
As of this writing, neither Better Call Saul nor AMC has issued an official response to Latourette’s admission.
