Marilyn Manson had to pretend to eat a real leech on the set of the TV show 'Salem'.
Marilyn Manson
The 47-year-old shock rocker stars in the third season of the American supernatural drama series as a barber and one scene saw him have the slimy segmented worm in his mouth, although he wasn't allowed to swallow it.
Asked what it was like eating a leech, he said: "I was a little disappointed that the leech handler wouldn't let me be a little bit rougher with them [laughs]. They don't really have nervous systems, technically. But I remember as a little kid I used to pour salt on slugs. They're probably from the same family. And I have eaten escargot before, so I figured why not eat the leech? It's not that big of a deal."
Asked if it was a real one, he added: "Yeah. I wasn't technically allowed to swallow it. So we will agree to disagree to agree that there is a leech in my mouth that did not necessarily get eaten."
Meanwhile, the 'Personal Jesus' hitmaker - who made his acting debut in David Lynch's 'Lost Highway' in 1997 - also painted a goat black on the set just for fun.
He told Rolling Stone magazine: "I'd seen that movie 'The Witch' about a week into working on 'Salem' ... And the goat in the movie, Black Phillip, became an obsession of mine. So on the last day of the shoot, I requested a black goat to play with, just off set, just for my own recreational purposes. But they brought a red goat, so I sang quite simply ... 'I see a red goat, and I want to paint it black' (to the tune of Rolling Stones' 'Paint It Black'). And everyone really got a kick out of it. And I did: They did let me paint it black. It was ornery."
Manson appears in the third season of the show, which premieres Wednesday (02.11.16) on WGN America.
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