Since it premiered on ABC in 1990, Twin Peaks has made an impression on everyone who’s seen it. Whether it was life-long love or total confusion, the show sparked conversation then, and still does so, for everyone who has continued to discover it. So, when I received an invitation to head over to Silver Lake’s Vista Theater for the premiere of Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery, which includes nearly 90 minutes of outtakes and deleted scenes from 1992's prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, I jumped at the opportunity.
Before heading inside to check out the footage, I got to chat with some of the actors, including Ray Wise and Grace Zabriskie (who played Laura Palmer’s parents, Leland and Sarah), Catherine Coulson (The Log Lady), Mädchen Amick (Shelly Johnson), James Marshall (James Hurley), Miguel Ferrer (Albert Rosenfeld) and Mary Jo Deschanel (Eileen Hayward), who are all clearly still very appreciative of the time they spent in the Twin Peaks universe, working with the mastermind behind it all, David Lynch. Check out what they had to say and read my thoughts on the footage after the jump.
After a wonderfully wacky speech that only David Lynch could deliver, the audience was treated to the missing pieces, or deleted and extended scenes, that don’t really make up a complete narrative structure, in their own right, but do give a sense of a more complete overview of the story itself. Without ruining the experience of seeing these scenes for the first time, I will say that my own personal favorites were the conversation between Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and Diane, that is shot from outside of the room so that you still never see her, a conversation between Cooper and Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland) where they are discussing the blue rose, and a Palmer family dinner where they all end up having giggle fits.
There are moments with almost all of the characters, including Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie) and Special Agent Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak), and even the creamed corn makes a return appearance. And then, along with the footage, there is a “Between Two Worlds” black and white featurette, in which David Lynch interviews Leland, Sarah and Laura Palmer about what they’ve been doing in the 25 years since Laura’s death. It’s a fun experience for any fan of the series and film, and will be a great addition of supplemental material for anyone discovering it all, for the first time.
David Lynch’s footage introduction speech:
Thank you all very much for being here tonight. There is an abundance of fish in the sea. But tonight, I would like to speak about wood. There are many times in the world when the phone rings and someone is inquiring about wood. This happens primarily at lumber yards, and in this case, it is necessary to have a phone. It is only natural that trees are growing and that they are made of wood. Much happiness can come from observing a tree, and the same can be said about observing the many shapes fashioned out of wood. Quite often, when we are talking about beauty, we are talking about wood. Thank you very much!
Collider: What has being a part of the Twin Peaks universe meant to you?
RAY WISE: Oh, my! It’s meant everything. There’s not anything about it that isn’t positive. It’s just been so great, doing it in the first place, and then the response it got worldwide, and then the fans remembering it, all these years. It’s over 25 years later. It had such an impact, and it has a place in television history. People still want to meet me and see me today because they loved Leland Palmer. It’s been great.
GRACE ZABRISKIE: It’s crazy, isn’t it? The hardcore fans are another matter, and they deserve to be. It’s not everyone who’s into that. But more and more people are watching it, for the first time, and discovering it, and they’re really happy to discover it. That’s exciting.
JAMES MARSHALL: It’s pretty amazing! I feel very fortunate. Everybody who bonded through it, whether audience, the people in it, or the people making it, are almost familial. People who gravitate towards it and people who like it tend to be birds of a feather. I just feel very fortunate.
MIGUEL FERRER: It’s really special. It changed everything. It really did. They did things one way before, and they do things really differently now. That’s because of this little TV show that only lasted two seasons. I’m thrilled that this little TV show has stood the test of time, and it really has. It wasn’t a fluke, and it wasn’t just a fade. It wasn’t just something crazy that happened in 1989, that looks really weird now. It’s really still incredibly special and groundbreaking and innovative. I’m thrilled that that’s the case. I really am.
CATHERINE COULSON: It’s wonderful! I love this universe! It’s been a great ride. It really has. It’s been a real joy to be a part of Twin Peaks, all these years. It’s 25 years later. I love it! I love that there are whole new generations of people who like it. I’ve gotten to meet a lot of great, young hipsters. I was in Budapest, last year, at this market, and a bunch of young people came up to me and screamed, “Margaret!,” which is the name of the character. And I got to meet them all and have a great time and sign some autographs. It was really fun. They were about 20. They were younger than my own daughter. It’s been great to have another generation get so interested in it.
MADCHEN AMICK: It’s great! I just love it because it means that people really appreciated it for what it was. We do so many things that we believe in, but sometimes it just never sees the light of day. To see that this has lasted this long is amazing. It deserves it. And it gave me immediate credibility and a lot of opportunities, right away. It also just shaped my career and what I chose to do. I was offered more mainstream stuff, and I just was inspired to do something better and more interesting, and to chose strong female roles. That’s the path that David [Lynch] sent me on.
MARY JO DESCHANEL: It’s wonderful! It affected me in lots of ways. We knew David [Lynch] from AFI and it was really great to be a part of it, but it affected me because I had my early childhood in a small town and my grandparents lived there. Having that as a background, and then being in a show that talks about a small town and the underbelly of it, which we all feel, was wonderful. As a child, you sense it, but you don’t know what that is. That hadn’t really been explored, especially in a television show. It was wonderful to be a part of that, on every level. It’s a shame it couldn’t have gone on a little longer, but it was probably hard to keep up the quality of it. I’m sure it could have, but that’s hard to do. I’m just really thrilled that I got to be a part of it.
This show was on at a time before social media existed, so viewers couldn’t live tweet about it. Did a lot of fans want to talk to you about it because you really had to communicate directly, if you wanted to talk about it?
WISE: Isn’t that funny? They didn’t have their smart phones, or any of that stuff. Yes. I recently went on Twitter. I have a Twitter site of my own, @TheRealRayWise. I had to call it that because there are other Ray Wise’s. I got verified because I am the real Ray Wise. Twin Peaks fans have been tweeting me, on a regular basis.
MARSHALL: Sometimes. Not a whole lot. A lot of people don’t recognize me from the show anymore. I had black hair on the show, and I look a little different. They do sometimes, but not a lot.
This show was allowed to find a life, over two seasons, and then it even had a movie. Do you think this show would have gotten as far as it did, if it were on now?
WISE: Yeah, but I think we’d be on a place like HBO and Showtime. We would run forever because there would be no holds barred. There wouldn’t be any ABC censors. But even then, the ABC censors were pretty lenient with us. David [Lynch] had complete creative control. We got away with stuff that nobody has ever gotten away with.
What do you remember about the experience of working with David Lynch? Was he very collaborative with the actors?
ZABRISKIE: I learned to trust him without necessarily having to understand. On Inland Empire, even more. I’d like to say that that degree of trust has transferred to all my other directors since, but not so much. I ask them some hard questions.
MARSHALL: It was one of those things where I just completely trusted him. Upon meeting him, I just felt very simpatico with him, and he makes you feel that way. I had to get used to not having any answers, but it was okay to keep it a mystery because that’s like real life.
FERRER: You can talk to him and ask him questions. He may even answer you, or he may not. But, he’s a really nice guy. He’s not an unapproachable guy. He’s a very, very nice, friendly person. You can ask him whatever you want and suggest whatever you want. He may say no or he may say yes, but he’s a great guy. He’s a joy to work with. It’s a pleasure because he’s just a great guy to be around. And he’s got such a unique point of view on everything. He sees the world in his own way.
COULSON: I remember being very spontaneous. We would make things up, as we went. We had a lot of fun. It was just a lot of fun to do.
AMICK: He’s great! He is one of a kind. He’s got such a brilliant mind. He’s so artistic. He sees things in such a unique and interesting way. And yet, at the same time, he’s so simple and sweet and good, and really connects with you and loves you. I think a lot of people have this impression that he’s this really weird guy that you can’t approach. He’s so sweet and normal, and he loves Bob’s Big Boy. He’s just great.
DESCHANEL: In terms of being a director and creatively, he’s completely open, he will listen to everybody, and he stops to take in information. He doesn’t audition. He just meets you, so you feel that he trusts you. It’s very, very unusual. It’s the way you want things to be, but it’s very unusual. And the other directors that he chose to direct the episodes were mostly film directors. People were coming from different mediums than television, most of the time. But, David is just a dream to work with. I enjoyed everything. I remember a dinner scene that was really fun because there were a lot of undertones, with the peas and my daughter feeding me dirty looks. There was a lot of mystery about why I was in a wheelchair. He wasn’t sure. He had a lot of possible scenarios. It was fun to not absolutely know, but to play around with it. It really was fun.
When all was said and done, did you take any props or mementos home from the set?
WISE: Yeah, I have stuff. I have one of the railroad spikes from the train track that held the car where we did the scene [between Leland and Laura]. And I have the suit that Leland Palmer died in. And I have a Twin Peaks’ sheriff department shirt and hat. I have a bunch of stuff.
COULSON: Well, I have the log. I’m taking very good care of it. I also think I kept some of her clothes, and my red glasses. We weren’t very historically self-conscious, at the time.
Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery and The Missing Pieces is available on Blu-ray on July 29th.