48 FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND • NOv/DEc 2014 49FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND • NOv/DEc 2014

THE ‘MISSING PIECES’ OF

An IntervIew wIth the MAn who KIlled lAurA PAlMer

by david weiner

“That gum you like is going to come back in style.” Close to 25 years

after it debuted on the airwaves of network television, TWIN PEAKS is back, winning over new fans and rekindling the fervor of old ones; inspiring new discussions, debates, podcasts, pondering, and pie appreciation. A daring, innovative, and entirely different experiment that delivered a jolt to conventional TV programming in 1990, the intensely layered and cinematically styled whodunit co-created by David Lynch and Mark Frost—which ran for two seasons and also included the 1992 theatrical feature TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME—grew to become a pop culture phenomenon and riveted audiences with the loaded question, “Who Killed Laura Palmer?”

In celebration of the TWIN PEAKS: THE ENTIRE MYSTERY AND THE MISSING PIECES Blu-ray box set released over the summer, veteran character actor Ray Wise took the time to share his memories and perspective with Famous Monsters. No stranger to the horror, Sci-Fi, and fantasy genres (with memorable roles in SWAMP THING, STAR TREK, ROBOCOP, REAPER, JEEPERS CREEPERS 2, and BIG ASS SPIDER!), the man who played Laura Palmer’s father, a pivotal character in

the PEAKS pantheon, was happy to detail his love of monster movies, the mystical calm of a David Lynch set, the art of talking backwards, the virtues of quality coffee and pie, and his surreal opportunity to inhabit his signature character 25 years later.

(Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t watched TWIN PEAKS, beware of exposed, crucial plot details below. What? You haven’t watched the show? What are you waiting for? Do yourself a favor.)

Famous Monsters. Were you a big fan of monster movies and the like, growing up as a kid?Ray Wise. Oh my goodness, yes. In the ’50s, are you kidding? THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON was a big one on my radar, and thrilled me and scared me. And then all the creature movies in the ’50s, monster movies, were just amazing. And of course, the older ones from the ’30s—FRANKENSTEIN, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. I’ve always been a fan

of monsters, and I’ve played a few, you know? I was SWAMP THING, and I still

have the whole SWAMP THING makeup in my closet somewhere. The head and the chest and all that.FM. So it’s safe to assume that some of those monster movies made a real impact on you in terms of your career choices?RW. Yeah! Any time I got the opportunity to participate in a story that I felt fascinated by in the ’50s, and those early pictures, I jumped at the chance. I just love to be scared. I love to be afraid watching a

movie. I find it very titillating and very exciting to be able to sit in a safe theater seat, or in your own living room, and watch something that sends chills up your spine. I really enjoy that feeling.FM. And, of course, as Leland Palmer, you got the chance to scare the bejeezus out of everybody…RW. (laughs) I know! Probably the ultimate monster who doesn’t look like a monster. But certainly a monstrous personality, and he had certainly some of the scariest moments on a television screen, I can tell you that.

FM. The TWIN PEAKS Blu-ray set that came out in July is a real piece of work, by virtue of its design alone. For its release, you got an opportunity to go to The Bigfoot Lodge (in Atwater Village, CA)—or back to Twin Peaks, so to speak—with David Lynch and co-stars Sheryl Lee and Grace Zabriskie (who played Laura Palmer and her mother Sarah, respectively) and not only get to recap your memories of the show, but also get a once-in-a-lifetime chance to inhabit your character again. How surreal was that?RW. It was amazing. David just pulled that script out on us the morning we arrived at The Bigfoot Lodge, and we knew we were going to be making extra material for the Blu-ray, but we had no idea, really, what it

would be. David handed us those pages and he said, “Hey, we’re going to interview your characters 25 years later. I know Leland is dead, but that’s no problem.”FM. Lynch is like, “In my world, that’s the norm.”RW. [laughs] Yeah. And so we looked at these pages of new material, and fortunately I have a pretty good memory—it’s almost photographic, I can learn stuff pretty fast—and I looked at it and I thought, “Wow!” And we started shooting it and it was almost like 25 years had never happened. It was almost like the next day, and we just fell back into our characters so easily that it was pretty surreal. FM. From the moment the camera is trained on you for this new sequence, your eyes are welled up. You sold it to me instantly. I felt that emotion.RW. It was a powerful moment, and it was real, and I’m just happy that it happened and that the camera was able to pick it up.FM. Your character has an opportunity to reflect, explain himself, and even be a bit contrite in terms of what happened during the events of the show.RW. Yeah, he’s trying to redeem himself a little bit. He’s had a lot of time in the netherworld to think of all that happened and what he had done [laughs]. When Leland died in the arms of [Agent] Cooper,

the whole thing of what he had done was shocking to him, and overwhelming at that moment. Given 25 years to think about it, he was able to express himself a little better and be able to explain a little more how he felt, and the contrition that he felt.FM. I’m sure there was also some closure for you as an actor, because you’ve said in the past that you were having so much fun making TWIN PEAKS that you were a bit surprised and disappointed to find out that you were the one who killed Laura Palmer.RW. Absolutely. I didn’t want it to be me. No way did I want it to be me. I wanted it to be anybody but me. Please take Richard Beymer—[who played] Ben Horne—or somebody else! Let Harry Truman (played by Michael Ontkean) be the one [laughs]. I had my own little daughter back at that time, she was a couple years old, and the whole idea of being the murderer of my daughter’s character was kind of an anathema to me. I didn’t want it to be me. Plus, I didn’t want to leave town, and I knew that if I was the killer, I would either have to go to prison or I would have to die; I certainly couldn’t hang around. So yeah, I was really disappointed when I heard that it was me. But then David explained the way I would be going out, and it was a glorious scene, so I couldn’t complain about that.FM. Compared to these days, with shows like

Coffee lover Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean) prepare to answer one of TVs most pressing questions: Who killed Laura Palmer?

50 FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND • NOv/DEc 2014 51FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND • NOv/DEc 2014

GAME OF THRONES or THE WALKING DEAD, you should consider yourself lucky that you made it a whole season!RW. [laughs] I made it, like, 16 episodes, then came back for the 30th—dead! So that’s pretty darn good these days, yeah. And let’s face it, if TWIN PEAKS were to be done today, we’d probably be on HBO or Showtime. We certainly wouldn’t be on one of the major networks. How that ever happened, I don’t know. ABC, which was owned by Capital Cities at the time, made a deal with David Lynch and Mark Frost

and gave them complete autonomy. I don’t think it had ever been done before or since. TWIN PEAKS was the result, and I think it was very fortunate that it lasted as long as it did.

FM. When you were filming the series before it first aired, did you have any idea that it would get such an incredible reception, much less become a phenomenon?RW. No, none whatsoever. The two-hour pilot that we did, we knew it was special—it was David Lynch and Mark Frost; they

wrote some great stuff, and it was a wonderful cast that really jived together, and we had a wonderful time together, and we knew it was something really good and something special, but we certainly didn’t have any idea how it would come across to the nation and on television. And when it broke the way it did, and became the phenomenon that it did, it was surprising, but very gratifying.

FM. What is the vibe like on a David Lynch set? I’m sure it’s different from the

average movie or TV show. How much creative collaboration did you have?RW. A great deal. Things were written [that] we had to perform, but within that framework we were given license to be able to handle it any way that we saw fit—remaining true to the words and the dialogue; that was always essential. We could explore, especially in the episodes that David directed. He gave us a good lead-in to every scene. A David Lynch set is kind of a laid-back set. Everybody’s pretty relaxed, everybody’s in a good mood, and he maintains that, and we know that we’re doing something special that’s going to turn out good no matter what, and he has the uncanny ability to say the right thing at the right time that triggers everything for a particular scene. The result is what you see. You know, we never did too many takes of anything. If we did three takes, that would have been a lot. A lot of times, those first takes were the ones he would go with. He’s very intuitive; his imagination’s boundless, and he encourages our imaginations. It was a great collaboration.

FM. Among the things that TWIN PEAKS is known for—quirk, darkness, an appreciation of life’s simple pleasures—I’m going to be very disappointed if you tell me that the set did not have delicious

pie and perfect coffee.RW. Oh, it was absolutely delicious, and the coffee was great! That appreciation of the simpler things in life, as you say, of food and companionship—and good Broadway tunes [laughs]—all of that was part and parcel of TWIN PEAKS. That’s what makes up small towns like Twin Peaks, and that’s what makes those relationships so special.

FM. Reading the TWIN PEAKS scripts as they would first arrive in your hands, with Red Rooms, strange giants and dwarves, White and Black Lodges, people talking backwards—was it all pretty straightforward? Were you able to make heads or tails of it, or did you need a little help?RW. Oh we always needed help, and sometimes we got the help and sometimes there wasn’t any help to be had! [laughs] We were flying by the seat of our pants a lot of the time when it came to some of those story points, and trying to get our heads around the Black Lodge and the Red Room, and little Michael Anderson talking backwards and teaching us to talk backwards. But it was also wonderfully exciting. It was exhilarating to be thrown into that kind of a tapestry, where you didn’t know what was going to happen

next, or if you’d be able to pull it off.

FM. How did you achieve those infamous reverse-filmed scenes in which you speak normal sentences while really talking backwards? Did you memorize the intonations of your speech after your lines were recorded and played for you backwards?RW. Well, it was actually written down on a piece of paper backwards, and we memorized it that way. Michael Anderson is pretty much the one who did it all, and as I recall, he actually dictated it for someone to write down, and then we took it off the page. At least that’s the way I recall it. A lot of things that happened on TWIN PEAKS, now 25 years later, people have different versions, and I guess they all have what they remember pretty set in their mind, so I always like to qualify it as, “at least that’s the way I remember it.” [laughs]

FM. Revisiting TWIN PEAKS almost 25 years after it first hit the airwaves, it remains head and antlers above the rest

compared to shows that tried to be like it in terms of originality, humor, mystique, and storytelling. What is it about PEAKS that makes it endure?RW. It still holds up after all these years. I don’t know how it ever got on the air when it did, you know? It was just a special thing in a special moment in time, and it existed for what it was. There had never been anything before quite like it, and I don’t think anything quite like it since. It was a pretty amazing thing.

More than just a murder mystery, TWIN PEAKS—from the Red Room of Agent Cooper’s dreams (with the deceased Laura Palmer) to the Black and While Lodges—held a supernatural air that helped set the show above its contemporaries. The new box set includes the entire series and feature film in HD, and over 90 minutes of deleted scenes that tie up some old loose ends, plus bonus features no fan can miss.