Knight-Ridder Newspapers, 1990

'Twin Peaks' players are pretty normal folks

By JONATHAN STORM

Los Angeles - The strange characters of "Twin Peaks" make up a family that only a mother - David Lynch - could love. But the actors who play them seem pretty normal. They may be artists living out here in Lotus Land, but most have a small-town quality that´s as agreeable as good huckleberry pie.

Sure, Lara Flynn Boyle has three cars - including a two-tone Super 88 that´s 13 years older than she is; Catherine E. Coulson talks rapturously about her one-and-only log; and Sherilyn Fenn just finished a movie called "Desire and Hell at the Sunset Motel."

But members of this eclectic team, who range in age from 20 to well past 60, also get starry-eyed when they talk about working with director Lynch and each other, their surprise at the show´s success, the minimal change "Twin Peaks" has made in their lives. And, more than anything, you get the idea that they´re having fun.

"We have this subdued excitement," said Harry Goaz, the weepy Deputy Andy, who had never acted professionally in his life. "Even with the most veteran actors, everyone is - I wouldn´t say giddy is the word - but everyone feels as sense of excitement."

"Peaks" begins all over again Sunday night at 8 p.m. with its two-hour season premiere and then moves to its regular time slot at 9 p.m. Saturdays.

Lynch´s direction - he´s co-producer of the series but directly involved in only a small percentage of episodes - makes a huge difference, the major reason some episodes are so much better than others.

"David works very differently," said veteran Russ Tamblyn, who plays bizarre psychiatrist Lawrence Jacoby and also serves as a sort of Pied Piper for many of the ensemble´s young actors. "When you come in and work with David, you know that you better be on your toes, because he has the power to do what maybe other directors haven´t yet figured out they can do ... take the script and totally turn it around.

"So you not only have to memorize your script, but you have to memorize it out of context .... He´s just liable to get an idea and go with that, and it has nothing to do with the scene."

The experience sounds unnerving, but it´s just the opposite, Tamblyn said. Lynch´s style brings spontaneity and freshness to TV-making.

"I´m such a fan of Mr. Lynch´s," said Michael Horse, the American Indian silversmith-actor who plays Deputy Hawk. "It´s not even the money. It´s the artistic endeavor. I took this stricty for artistic reasons."

But the money helps. Most of the actors assembled here for breakfast with reporters during a recent press tour said the steady paychecks constituted the only significant change in their personal lives since "Twin Peaks" began.

"The show has given me more security," said Dana Ashbrook, who plays the wild child, Bobby Briggs. "I know I´ll have a job for a while, and that´s nice."

"I can cash a check now," said Tamblyn.

"I can actually take a credit card," said Flynn Boyle, who plays Donna Hayward, "and buy something and not feel that guilty."

And there are cars. "I have great cars," said Flynn Boyle, who´s all of 20 years old and gets to choose whether to tool around in her Jeep, "brand new, sporty BMW" or ´57 Oldsmobile hardtop convertible. "It´s flamingo pink and bullet gray," she cooed.

Boyle and "Peaks" star Kyle MacLachlan are involved in the only public romance among the cast, but she said she still lives in a Century City apartment with her mom and two golden retrievers, while MacLachlan keeps a place in Venice, about six miles away. She lets her mother drive the Jeep.

But for the cars - she doesn´t mention MacLachlan - Boyle said the show has had little effect on her personally: "It´s really har to change your life. You know, you go to work, you do a scene, you come home at 10 o´clock at night. I still have to take my dogs out. I still have to clean the house."

Somebody noted that with her clothes, cars and glamorized canines, she´s adapted pretty well to Los Angeles for a girl who left Chicago only two years ago, the day after graduating high school.

"I know," she replied. "Isn´t that horrible?"

Sheryl Lee, on the other hand, the woman who played the dead Laura Palmer so well that she returned to the show as her identical cousin has chosen a more restrained path.

"I still live in a house with four roommates and drive around in a beat-up car and all that," she said. "I´m just busier."