I Played the Live-Action Cartman on ‘South Park’

Throughout the vast history of South Park, Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman have appeared in live-action form precisely three times. The very first time occurs in a Netherlands-only short from 2010, but the instance that’s probably best remembered is the 2012 episode “I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining.”

It’s a parody of the now-defunct series I Shouldn’t Be Alive, which retold people’s harrowing survival events with reenactments. For the South Park foursome, the event is a very boring ziplining adventure that takes a turn for the worse when Cartman gets explosive diarrhea. While most of the episode is animated per usual, the reenactments, which take place on a boat, are done with real actors, including live-action versions of Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman. Cartman’s part is especially memorable, if only because at one point he shits off the side of the boat. 

I recently tracked down the guy who played live-action Cartman, an actor and YouTuber named Brandon Hardesty, to talk about his memories of playing the most horrible little boy in South Park. 

When you got the part playing Cartman, were you a South Park fan?

I was a huge South Park fan. I had seen virtually every episode and all the DVDs. I got the audition, then went to South Park Studios where they actually make the show. It was cool enough to be able to just walk into that place. You walk in, and it’s just these big murals of Cartman and Stan and stuff like that. They explained that they were doing a weird live-action spoof of some survivalist documentary show. The one thing that they stressed was: “Don’t try to do an impression of the character. Just do it as you normally would.”

What was the process after you were cast? Did you rehearse before going on the boat?

No, there was no rehearsal. I went in one day for a costume fitting, and that was an event for me too. I went into a bathroom and they gave me the full-on Cartman costume. All of us originally had the full winter gear — the hat and the coat and the gloves. They actually don’t have the full costume in the episode, though. I have a picture of all of us wearing them with Matt and Trey just before we got on the boat on the first day of shooting.

What was the shoot itself like?

I think it was shot in Marina del Rey. We showed up to shoot; we got in costume. I met all the other guys, and we were all just jazzed about being on South Park. We went into a parking garage. That’s where we met Matt Stone. He walked up to us already laughing because he saw us all in costume. He went, “This is so fucking stupid. This is great.”

We introduced ourselves to him, and then we met Trey Parker and we went out on a boat. It was Trey’s dad’s boat, and his dad drove it. The whole thing reminded me of when I’d get a camera with my friends and we were just shooting stuff that would make us laugh, like the stupidest shit.

We came in full costume, but at some point, they decided to scale it back, like, “You take your jacket off and you keep the hat.” They also decided on the day what kind of mumbling Kenny was going to be doing. Are they going to have his face covered? Things like that.

Who was on the boat?

It was the four of us, the two of them, Trey’s dad and at least two other crew members. It was a real skeleton crew. I believe there was a woman there who helped spray the diarrhea from behind me when I was shitting off the boat — it’s so obvious that a hand is behind my ass.

It was funny too — you try not to break, but there were a few times when I said some line and then Kenny’s like, “Hey, fuck you” and they zoom in on his face. That broke us several times. We couldn’t stop laughing. Trey was like, “All right guys, let’s get it together. Come on.” Then we were fine after that.

What else from that day stands out?

In between shots, we’d go down into the little cabin of the boat so we wouldn’t get sunburned. We were all swapping stories about what projects we worked on and what stuff we wanted to do. I remember Trey talking about the game Arkham Horror that he played with somebody. It was cool to hear that he was into a board game because I had just gotten into Arkham Horror. 

I mainly just remember the vibe. It was the most comfortable I had ever felt on the first day of something because there was no pressure. It was just so stupid. You didn’t really have to hit any specific beats or marks. It was just on the fly. With just two handheld cameras, it felt like friends making something stupid to make them laugh — and nobody else.