From Uncut's April 2010 issue [Take 155], the making of David Lynch's Twin Peaks. Uncut spoke to the show's creators and stars to discover how the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer revolutionised television forever...
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From Uncutโs April 2010 issue [Take 155], the making of David Lynchโs Twin Peaks. Uncut spoke to the showโs creators and stars to discover how the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer revolutionised television foreverโฆ
โI had zero interest in doing a TV show. I have never really been into TV. I initially thought it was a terrible idea,โ says David Lynch, 64, but still somehow blessed with a pinched, boyish voice. โI had an agent who was more of a TV agent, and he started talking to me about doing a show.โ
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In spring 1986, Lynchโs agent, Tony Krantz, might not have been alone in thinking his client needed a change of direction. Following the cult success of 1977โs Eraserhead, and an Oscar nomination for The Elephant Man in 1980, Lynchโs Hollywood career had stumbled. Heโd turned down a chance to helm Return Of The Jedi for George Lucas, then attempted to start his own sci-fi franchise with Dune, only for the film to be one of the biggest bombs of the 1980s. Now, heโd returned to more personal work with the small-scale movie, Blue Velvet, which had just been sent out to film festivals, and was by no means a guaranteed hit. Consequently, Krantz suggested a sit-down with another of his clients, writer Mark Frost, a veteran of cop show Hill Street Blues. Over a series of meetings in vintage LA coffee shop Dupars, Frost and Lynch developed a genuine friendship.
โWe both loved cherry and blueberry pie,โ Frost recalls. โMaybe thatโs where the pie and coffee mythology started.โ
First, the pair discussed an adaptation of Goddess, Anthony Summersโ biography of Marilyn Monroe which exposed the actressโ involvement with the Kennedys and the underworld. Next, they completed an original screenplay entitled One Saliva Bubble. The latter was just about to go into production, with Steve Martin and Martin Short as its stars, when producer Dino De Laurentiisโ company lost financing.
โIt was a ridiculous comedy, set in a small town in Kansas,โ says Frost. โA doomsday machine bathes a community in a strange form of radiation that causes every one to switch identities. We had a great time writing it, which probably led us to say, โLetโs try this other thingโฆโโ
The โother thingโ had one or two aspects in common with Goddess, not least a doomed blonde fated to die at the hands of duplicitous characters. But even though its central figure Special Agent Dale Cooper would exclaim early on, โWhat was really going on between Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys, and who pulled the trigger on JFK?โ, Twin Peaksโ web of conspiracies and mysteries had a strange pull all of its own.
Twenty years ago this spring, Twin Peaks made its debut and changed the rhythm of television forever. Its odd tempo, black humour, brutal violence, pastoral beauty and nightmarish imagery inspired an adventurous new kind of TV serial โ from The X Files, to The Sopranos, to Lost โ and even recalibrated the way Hollywood nurtured and marketed indie films like Donnie Darko or Memento. Twin Peaks was both a cult obsession and, for a season and a half at least, a mainstream success, spawning pie and coffee parties and riveting tens of millions of viewers each week by asking, โWho killed Laura Palmer?โ
โIt was the first time Iโd had the experience of being totally speechless while watching a television show,โ says writer/director Alan Ball, the creator of Six Feet Under and True Blood. โThat really influenced me. Thereโd be no Six Feet Under or True Blood without it, I would say. And the fact that they got it onto major network โ itโs still an amazing feat.โ
Initially, though, Lynch and Frost had few expectations of โthe other thingโ, a pilot script entitled Northwest Passage. โMark printed out a copy and I drove home with it,โ Lynch says. โI sat down and read it and said, โJeez, this is kind of good.โ It seemed to hold a promise. It was a world that I felt real good about.โ
FIND THE FULL INTERVIEW FROM UNCUT APRIL 2010/TAKE 155 IN THE ARCHIVE