At the beginning of February 2026, me & a couple people got the idea to e-mail one of Kimberly Kubus's old friends, asking for a possible interview. To our surprise he responded almost immediately and was willing to do it! Shortly after, the interview was done! It provides incredible insight into Kubus's personal life, which until now was a mystery. Questions by speedos, TheDoctorCrow, Noli, Cody, and Macy.
Ok, my name is Amund Gravdal. I am a 37 year old guy from Norway. Im an artist, even though I sometimes struggle to call myself one, sometime I think «painter» is more sufficient, but then again I also make music, sound, film sometimes, so I dont know, lets just say that I mainly work with painting these days. My paintings are somehow my homage to the landscape and light around me that I love; not only through concrete visualizations of trees, rocks and lakes, but also in trying to evoke or bring forth some mystery and eerie presence… Mostly I work with oil on wooden boards.
Yes I met Kim at a school where they had different artsy studies like film, traditional art, music (rock and metal), theater, photography… Me and Kim took the film course together, and quickly found each other, first of all because we were from the same place (In this country we have lots of dialects and accents, so its easy to register where a person comes from just after exchanging a few words… ) but also cuz our styles had lots of similarities.
Kim was a remarkable person, not a regular guy. Yes he was unique from the first glimpse. Lets just say he did not act much different in his movies than in real life. I would first of all like to describe Kim as a really witty person. His sense of humour was great. He made me laugh so hard a times, and I dont really laugh that often around others. When it comes to his strange, gangly appearance, I dont know how much he played a character or if he was simply born this way. Police would stop him on the street, suspecting that he was really drunk or high on drugs, but he was sober, just his way of walking. He could be very polite and well behaved, like for instance at a party or so.. This aura you mention was certainly there, more and more as the years went I would say. I did sometimes feel a bit freaked out around him, like I was in the presence of a vampire or a ghost, but then he most of the time came with some humorous comments which brought him back to the ground and back into a human form. I also recall that he was washing his hands a lot and being concerned with hygiene .
Im sorry but I dont really play lots of games and it might come as a shock to you but I dont think I ever played one of his games, except when I was at his place, and he asked me to try something that he was working on...
He first wrote a manuscript that he printed out which he would hold in his strange which-like hands at all time, except when he lost in on the ground, or asked me to hold it so he could roll himself a cigarette. Then he would explain only the most necessary details like where we were etc. and ask me to say the line he had written. No practice, and most of the time no second take. He was a one-take-kind of director. When he was acting I was the cameraman, and he was quite determined as to how he wanted things to be, but also quite open to impulses from the surroundings. He visited me when I was at art school in Lofoten, where we recorded «The Curse of the Muffin Zombies» It was an intense week. We drove around in my red car to locations, he would say «Stop here, it perfect» and we would stop. So he worked quite a lot on intuition.
No, i cant recall anything like that. He was more telling me about plans for living a more «normal» life actually, the last time we met.
Yeah, I think he played mostly his own games. And he listened to his own music. But again, like I will tell more about in later questions, he had a surprisingly normal taste in film, music, and also games i guess.
Sorry, i dont know much here. ..
He loved to fool people, and make jokes, I think that is the simple reason.
I dont think he spoke of any fav director, but David Lynch for instance, which is one of my favorites, was to weird for him :) He preferred simple blockbusters I think, I think he enjoyed classic horrors like Halloween and those things.
I know more about musical inspiration though. He was a huge fan of Frank Zappa and also liked the band Smokey quite a lot. And he has his name from the Danish artist Kim Larsen. His father is danish.
The thing is that I already made quite absurd, experimental films inspired by David Lynch and such before I met Kim, so we quickly found the creative vibe together to say it like that. He could not play any instruments, and Im quite musical, so many times that which has any musical structure in his albums came from me trying to keep him a little bit within the frame. So perhaps we inspired each other. I was always more attached and grounded to earth and folklore and such, while Kim had his own universe, The Kubus sphere, where he gathered almost all inspiration it seemed. A universe that must have been with him since childhood I supose.
He lived in the basement of his parents. The room was a smokey one. Always a sigarette was burning in the ashtray, and a coca cola was standing half drunk on the desk. Scattered around where lots of weird things, he collected weird instruments for instance. exotic instruments. and artifacts from his movies. body parts, which hands, hats, masks… I think he lived his life as his art was, no seperation between «work» and «free time» it was both the same i think. And, like I said earlier, he liked regular music, films and TV-shows. I remember once he said Bob Marleys music was too spaced and wierd for instance…
No, I did not post anything there.
O,h I did not know that. Cool. He had candy at his desk all the time but I cant recall what, but coca cola, normal, not zero, was always there. I can imagine he liked christmas, he lived with his parents, and I met them. Nice folks. His mother was caring and probalby they had a nice christmas vibe.
Yes, more and more as the years past. or perhaps as we knew each other better. He tried kind of meditations where he would breathe so litle that he probably where close to losing consciousness and his body temperature dropped down to 20 something. (this is what he told me) and then he would travel into the Kubus universe. He spoke about being a vampire and ghost, and to be honest, I believed him a few times. It was wierd.
We talked about many things, also religion and philosophy, he spoke about a Waaqa religion that he was interested in. Its strange because he was a little racist at times, said he did not like black people to much.
In the beginning of the film school when he was still a bit of a mysteriy that no one really knew, he came over to one of the fellow students and said «sorry, but do you have a scissors?» the other replied something like no, not on me but I could get one why? Kim says that he has been wearing this latex corsette for tree days now without getting it of and could use some help to cut it up. :)
Another time we were at a bar and Kim wanted to do something as rare as to buy a drink, he came over to me and said, «Hey, I think I might have payed 7560 Kroner (or something, which is around 750 Euros) for the drink. I think I payed to much. Turns out he had used his pin code instead of the amount to pay. I had to help him out of the situation. It says a little about his character I think.
When he visited me in Lofoten to film curse of the muffin zombie we were invited to a student party one evening. Kim normally wore pretty eccentric clothes, like goth style, just with Kim touch to it. I said we could go to the party and asked if he wanted to join and he said yes, but I just want to change first. He went to the room and changed and came out looking like his mother had dressed him, with pants and a sweater tucked down under the pants. Combed hair. Like super stright. He was surprising.
Also once in a group discussion out of nothing he started telling about Cillit Bang cleaning products and his favorite sprays and how Bang and Cillit where living their lives in this universe of spraying products. I was laughing with tears running all over my face…
While we were filming once, we were walking on a road and suddenly Kim seems afraid and wants to turn around. I ask him what the problem is and I notice further a head on the road there are a couple of old people with a walking chair. Turns out he is really afraid of old people.
Well there is a lot.. also the white rabbit that appeared out of thin air while we were filming «Rats for Dinner» But at this point he did not have his camera, we only had mine, so this capture I can send you.
No, no. The interview is about Kim after all… You might find some of my movies if you search for theolaps on youtube. it should be the first suggestion. A white drawing of a strange being. there are some movies and musical projects there. Here is a link to make it easier: https://www.youtube.com/@theolaps
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/amunhalan
Perhaps its worth to mention that Kim was a troubled man in the ways of mental health. He received psychriatic help from young days, and even though I dont know his diagnose, it was close to something like schizophrenia, and his death was quite tragic. I dont know if he wanted to take the whole step over to the other side, or if he just wanted to visit his Kubus Universe for a while. It might have been an accident. He wanted to quit smoking and had started taking some nicotine preparat. His father said this might have had an impact on his death. They dont know. So I think its really cool to be inspired by his art, but keep in mind that his lifestyle was far from healthy.
Also I would like to say thank you for lifting up Kims art, for it is unique, its true, its original. He lived his life as his art. His art was his life, his life was his art. He died at the age of 27 like so many great artist. I wonder how he would have been today. I really do. I spoke about dreams about living a normal life with a normal job sometimes. Believe it or not..
Amund then also provided us with a 2 minute short featuring Kubus which has never been seen anywhere before.