Marilyn Manson makes his low-key debut on this weeksSalemseason 3 episode The Heart Is a Devil.
Two short scenes will give a glimpse into a typical day of his character, the town barber.
Thomas Dinleys shop doesnt have a pole and hes not cutting heads this time around.
Barbers did double-duty as doctors and surgeons in the hazy, crazy days of the Salem Witch Trials.
He already owned original pieces of the ancient medical equipment he worked with on set.
Did they cast you as the barber for your expertise on hair styles or deviltry?
I have a barbers chair in my house and I collect straight razors.
They didnt know that.
They bend the rules, obviously a little bit, on the fiction and the witchcraft.
He was the pop in of person who just carves it open and looks inside without emotion.
He is seemingly motivated simply by money.
I think throughout the course of the season he starts to discover there is more between skin and meat.
Braga said he didnt know if you cooked any of those meat pies.
I cooked one of them.
I cooked one sausage and I really wanted to eat it.
I wasnt really quite sure what they put in it.
Im no vegetarian but I tried to get someone else to eat one.
They did let me play with a goat.
That doesnt have anything to do with the sausage.
They painted it black for me and I played with it.
The goats owner let me hold it and the ornery fucker dragged me across the entire streets of Salem.
I didnt want to let go of it and it just dragged me goingmaaaaa.
That was kind of amusing.
Thats what you get when you play with the devil.
When you pull the devils horns, you get dragged.
How were the medical instruments on Salem?
Braga said you knew your way around them?
Yeah, I have a lot of similar ones.
I didnt get to use all of them as Id like to.
My character is one of the most unhygienic surgeons you ever want to have.
There is one episode where I have to deal with what I call witch herpes.
Someone has some kind of lesion but I just called it witch herpes because its disgusting.
Some sort of boils.
My character has no problem going in with unclean hands, no disinfectant and extracting them.
Then smelling them to attempt to tell what kind of infection.
A really unsanitary character.
How did you treat the other cast and crew?
Did you do anything to cement your reputation?
One of the people fromSalems PR team told me she was a spooked by yourCelebrity Ghost Storyappearance.
I never watched it but I remember telling it.
You shootSalemin New Orleans, two beautiful cities with magical history whats different about the energy?
Its close, but it still brings back memories of recordingAntichrist Superstar.
Thats where I got most of my early illegal oddities.
Most of those things people expect me to have come from New Orleans.
Thats where the introduction to my cross between Santeria and Voodoo and hoodoo came from.
All of those branded things down there.
That stuff is scary in that it works.
I, myself, was involved when I was in Louisiana, very close to where we filmed.
I also put a hex on somebody while I lived down there 18 years ago.
I can say it successfully worked.
Ill leave it at that.
As far as the magic, what are they getting right onSalem?
I didnt get to read all the scripts.
Im in six of ten.
I do know how it ends because Im in the ending.
I think theyre as accurate as you’re free to get based on the available reading material.
I know that theyre really in tune with the alchemy of it all.
Thats what I like about my character, because hes basically an alchemist.
Hes motivated by gold.
He does things that could be considered magic, depending on what you consider to be magic.
You have the Indians and their rituals and then youve got the witches.
Who can say what actually transpired?
As far as the rituals, that I couldnt say.
I dont think you could ever really know unless you were there.
This season is really intense and really violent.
I think its even scary and I dont get scared easy.
There are some good frightening things in it.
Do you ever worry that someone might make a voodoo doll out of one of your horror action figures?
Now theyre too hard to poke through.
Ive tried Ive already tried it myself.
What are the best drugs for ritual and who is your connection inSalem?
Who is my drug hook up in Salem?
My character is the drug hookup.
Hes a drug dealer.
He has the apothecary.
My character invents a certain fluid to imbibe.
Its probably historically inaccurate, but I like that they let my character be responsible for it.
Its not absinthe, because that would be too obvious as far as being historically inaccurate.
Its hard to say.
I dont ever want to do it acid again in my life.
Thats a bad drug to do.
Someone gave me this very ornate, modern version of Crowleys pipe.
It has a combination of Indica and Sativa resin in it.
Its silver and black and is working very good on me right now.
Just one blast from the past question, what was it like working with David Lynch?
Strangely enough, I worked with Jennifer Lynch, his daughter, on the best episode I did onSalem.
I remember meeting her when I was at David Lynchs house maybe 20 years ago.
Heres what its like working with David Lynch.
A very quick and accurate impersonation.
[in his own voice] Fall down what?
You also worked onSons of Anarchy
That was great and I got to make a lot of good friends.
I think the characters rubbed off on them.
They are two brothers and they stick behind me and we are very tight.
I pretty much coerced Kurt Sutter into letting me kill Juice.
He asked me for a favor and I said Ill do it if you let me kill juice.
Sutter wrote that in so I killed juice.
And you find out later I invent something that goes with that onSalem.
You figure that one out.
Will you be voting for Alice Cooper?
Im not voting on anything.
I love the theme song you wrote.
I love how you record drums in general.
Tell me a little bit about rhythm and magic?
I had sprained my ankle the night before and I wasnt particularly in the mode to play.
It only rains seven times a year in Phoenix.
I was pounding the witch drum I had since I was a kid.
Im not saying I control all the weather but when it came down it was a torrential downpour.
There was more rain than theyve had in 20 years.
The show got cancelled.
That has the rhythm and witchcraft.
My drummer is playing it also.
It also has an additional set of toms.
I think he played another set of toms over it because I like to layer.
I also play the tambourine, naturally.
My Indian background could be related to witchcraft, of course.
But I had never really seen the show at that point.
It hadnt been out.
That was synchronicity happening there.
Have you seen any films that accurately portray left hand path magic?
That movie was very solid and it takes place in a similar era thatSalemdoes.
I think that there is a heart of magic.
Part of the whole idea is that is it the imagination and where it can go.
I think there are a lot of times that people look at rituals in the literal sense.
Or there is some element that is electric or something that you cant quite describe.
Its just mens ability to understand things and other mens ability to control it.
Or women, Im speaking from my point of view.
Did you seeEyes Wide Shut?
Thats an interesting question.
I never looked at it that way.
After I get off the phone with you Im getting the Crowley Star tattoo, another synchronicity for you.
Its hard to say, I only saw it once in the theater.
I wasnt particularly fond of it, so I didnt look into it too much.
Maybe after a second watch it Ill have more.
But I see what youre getting at, from what I remember of it.
Im sitting on the couch fromRosemarys Baby, ironically, one of my valued collectibles.
Knowing from what Anton LaVey told me in the past, it was a mixture.
People like to come over to my house and take in the oddities Ive collected over the years.
Some are the ones La Vey had at his house.
He had Crowleys pipe and he let me hold it, which was exciting.
I would have to say maybe its time for more of that.
[LAUGHING] Who scored the most points, TV, movies or music?
Im going to go with music starting with the Stones.
Music has a different impact.
They cant simply be for no reason.
It wasnt like nowadays.
I think it was a genuine concern.
Music breaks up the language virus of religion and makes you not think about it.
It has that kind of impact.
We dont have the attention span it requires, today, necessarily.
The flood of information that theyre getting.
I think thats one thing aboutSalem.
It keeps people wanting more and thats part of the lure of witchcraft and Satanism.
Always leave them wanting more.
I think he got the fame and fortune, his forever.
His Mephistophelian/Faustian deal still lives on.
Sometimes men dont know exactly what they want.
Salemseason 3 airs every Wednesday, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on WGN.
