good evening! i've mentioned a few times popbytes before that i'm such a huge fan of twin peaks - it was one of the best shows in TV history (with a larger than life cult following - heck this show aired in like 1990 - that's like almost 18 years ago and i still can't talk enough about it) sadly the show had largely been unavailable on DVD until now - the entire series (29 episodes and the original two-hour pilot) is now out on one amazing DVD boxset packed with plenty of extras!
to celebrate the series' release i had an amazing opportunity to interview michael j andersen who played 'the man from another place' - who totally creeped everyone out with his backward talking and strange red curtained environment! he was so friendly & sweet - and answered all my questions with great insight - plus we had a number of laughs! he also made me think about the show in ways i never had before - i swear there could easily be a college course dissecting the show - along w/ all of david lynch's other work (you must see inland empire if you haven't already - it's crazy brilliant!)
i've been watching the series again over the past few weeks and it still holds up today - it's the most bizarre but oddly adorable show to ever grace television - it has been fascinating to see the drama of who killed laura palmer all over again - plus when i think back it was the first TV show to really open my eyes to 'cool' things and pop culture in general! anyways make sure to watch the trailer for the DVD embedded below - plus you must read my interview - i painstakingly transcribed it and i really do think it came out well - many thanks to ms. melanie for making this all happen! popbytes over & out for tonight...xxoo!
**popbytes interviews michael j. andersen
aka 'the man from another place'**
what's it like working with david lynch?
it's not like working with other directors - he doesn't tell you what he's trying to do. with 'twin peaks' and with a lot of david's work you can't discern the final work from reading the script at all. there are some similarities between the script and the final work - but you can't get the final work by just reading the script.
do people still recognize you from 'twin peaks'?
they sure do - i've even been autographed in beijing. a lot of times people - actually have the same reaction to the show - they're seeing me but they're not really sure they're seeing me…
what's been appeal of 'twin peaks'?
i think 'twin peaks' was a different kind of artwork than we had ever seen before. it came from a deeper place - at lot of times the normal stuff we see is a plotline where you travel from a to b and in the course of that journey you develop the characters. if you look at 'twin' peaks there's no real plotline - there's no plot - if you were asked what happened - you couldn't answer that question.
for example when the french tried to pay him to solve the mystery in 'fire walk with me' “we want to know who killed laura palmer and that's it.” but you know what - who killed laura palmer wasn't the plotline. it was the set - it was the environment - so to solve the mystery would be to be like detach the environment and cart it away - it would be demolishing the set - but you know what they kept adding on millions of dollars until he was willing to do it! (laughs)
in the end what they got - he answered the question so they could be satisfied but the real value of 'fire walk with me' was the picture of laura palmer's madness. really the answer to who killed laura palmer wasn't her father - it was laura palmer. she was gone like a turkey in the corn - there was no recovering from that. that was the point - which what was really shown.
do you still see cast members today?
there are 'twin peak' conventions and sometimes i can go to these little road shows and stuff like that and i'll run into people i worked with or cast members i didn't work with - it has been fun - it kind of stays with you the whole time - it never really goes away - which is a good thing. in a sense it's an amazing thing - how many art works that are that old can still be considered cutting edge?
i think it's possible that in a couple of hundred years - they're going to understand david lynch better than we do today - and we were alive at the same time (chuckles) i think that it's also true of van gogh - they're still looking at him and they grasp what he was about much better than they did when he was alive - he died as a homeless person thought to be a lunatic!
i'm still trying to figure out 'inland empire'?
well i think it's a warning. i was at david lynch's house and i saw this mouse in the refrigerator that was all taken apart and put in little plastic bags with labels on them as to what was in the bag and then there was a set of directions to tell you how to put the mouse back together…
the point to that was once you got the mouse taken apart in little bags - you can't put him back together - that was the point. i think that 'inland empire' is in the same vein. it's also really the actress (laura dern) she comes all apart and there's no way to get her back together. the two art pieces are on the same subject.
are you excited about the entire series coming out on dvd?
i guess so - to me it's all packaging. 'twin peaks' is the real thing - so the packaging is the packaging. you know there are fans that can tell me more about my life than i can remember myself. there's this one fan that can literally recite 'twin peaks' from beginning to end - every word - pretty convenient - don't you think? i suppose having all the episodes on a dvd is pretty convenient too!
every time i see it - i see it differently. it looks differently as i see it through the years - i read it differently. it's not just noticing stuff - stuff that i noticed completely had one reading and now i watch it and holy mackerel - and now i read it completely different after a couple of years.
it like a rauschberg blotter test - it sends you back on yourself as the way you look at things. i think that's part of what puts it in a category by itself - because so much of artwork is trying to direct you and to make sure you're interpreting it the way they want you to. i think the myriad of ranges of reactions and ways to read 'twin peaks' is part of the point. it's all in the eye of the beholder - and it's true not just of 'twin peaks' but of reality.
the definitive gold box edition of the series that became one of television's most acclaimed events finally arrives
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