Twin Peaks: 10 Hidden Details You Missed In The Film

Though Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me came out in 1992, it is still both enjoyable and relevant today — especially now that the revival of Twin Peaks has brought everyone’s favorite Lynchian weirdos back to the small screen. Both David Lynch and Mark Frost are masters of the small details, leaving a trail of tiny hints, little clues, and microscopic references through their masterpieces, of which Twin Peaks is certainly one.

There are actually countless hidden details in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me that most audience members have missed, but here are ten of the most exciting ones.

10 The Dream Speech

In the peculiar dream sequence, The Man from Another Place (portrayed by Michael J. Anderson) gives a strange speech. During this strange speech, the way that The Man from Another Place speaks is warped and unsettling, but few can recognize how this is actually accomplished.

If you listen closely, the actor actually spoke his lines backward, and then the audio for those lines was played backwards, creating a technically-forward-speaking, unsettling, eerie version of the speech. Particularly eagle-eyed viewers will notice that the zigzag pattern on the Black Lodge floor looks similar to the lobby floor in Henry’s house in David Lynch’s  Eraserhead.

9 A Real-Life Murder

Though most of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was actually shot on location in the state of Washington, some filming had to be completed in Los Angeles, when David Lynch went over his allotted shooting days on location. Laura Palmer’s murder was meant to be filmed on the last day of shooting, on October 31st, 1991 — Halloween.

That same day, a real-life murder was discovered: the death of a girl named Theresa Briggs, who was, apparently, killed while they were shooting the death of Laura Palmer. A particularly unsettling detail about Laura Palmer’s death, originally reported by Fangoria.

8 The Scenes That Almost Weren’t

David Lynch originally filmed enough footage for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me to go on for five hours, but the final runtime of the film ended up being about two hours and fifteen minutes, under half of David Lynch’s intended original cut, which means countless scenes had to have been deleted from the film.

David Lynch didn’t make those deleted scenes available for years due to rights issues over the film, which he was only able to resolve in 2014. At that point, he released over an hour and a half of deleted scenes for fans to enjoy, including an appearance from Michael Ontkean, who played the beloved Sheriff Harry S. Truman.

7 The Scenes That Really Weren’t

There were some moments that just didn’t make sense and had to be removed from the film. Not just deleted scenes; no, this also includes scenes that even the actors didn’t want to end up in the final cut of the film. For example, there was meant to be a scene with Ben Horne (played by Richard Beymer) was supposed to force Laura to kiss him, but he thought there wasn’t enough of a buildup to Ben extorting Laura, who he later claims to love.

This change necessitated the removal of yet another scene later on that referenced back to this scene. In addition, there were little moments like this, too — such as when David Lynch asked Laura Palmer actress Sheryl Lee to try smoking five cigarettes at once, and she immediately passed out.

6 Celebrity Cameos

There are countless performers and actors in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me that make cameo appearances or even play a prominent role in the story, such as David Bowie, Kiefer Sutherland, Jürgen Prochnow, and Harry Dean Stanton.

These actors, though famous enough to have household name recognition, all accepted very little money for their performances because they were all such big fans of David Lynch and Twin Peaks. This fact is true for Chris Isaak, as well, who also makes an appearance, as well as having had previously collaborated with David Lynch for a music video.

5 The Magical Ring

There’s actually an interesting history around the magical ring that is added to the Twin Peaks story in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. In typical Lynch fashion, the ring goes from Teresa Banks, when she’s murdered, to Laura Palmer. When Mark Frost wrote the 2016 book The Secret History of Twin Peaks, he actually explained the ring a bit further, actually, mentioning that the ring had been owned by Meriwether Lewis and Richard Nixon in the past, among others.

It is also shown in another deleted scene that Agent Dale Cooper’s girlfriend, Annie Blackburn (played by Heather Graham), was wearing the ring after the escaped the Black Lodge at the end of season two of Twin Peaks, tying the whole thing together. The ring was, apparently, later stolen…

4 Kyle MacLachlan’s Screen Time

Kyle MacLachlan, who plays Agent Dale Cooper, one of the greatest characters in the entirety of television history, does not make a very large appearance in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, despite being the star, arguably, of Twin Peaks, the show. Though David Lynch did actually intend and plan for Agent Cooper to have a much bigger part in the film, Kyle MacLachlan requested that that screen time be trimmed down, lest he be typecast as Agent Cooper as a result of it.

He’s not the only one to only make a small appearance in the movie, though: Peggy Lipton, who played the magnificent Norma Jennings, appears for less than thirty total seconds in the entire movie.

3 Recasting Donna

Multiple important lead actors from Twin Peaks, including Sherilyn Fenn, who played Audrey Horne, don’t return for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Though she originally supposedly had a scheduling conflict, she later said this was a choice after she was disappointed with the way season two of Twin Peaks had gone. Unfortunately, the same was true for Lara Flynn Boyle, who played Donna, who had a scheduling conflict filming Of Mice and Men.

As such, she was recast with Moira Kelly. Though there were rumors Lara Flynn Boyle refused to return due to nude scenes, she has been insisting as recently as 2014 that she had obligations to four other films total at the time, and David Lynch apparently was unwilling to work with her to fit her in.

2 Subtitle Squabbles

If you’re a British fan of Twin Peaks, then you may not notice as many hidden details as fans of Twin Peaks from every other part of the world, because you’re missing one thing everyone else has: subtitles. In most versions of the film — actually, pretty much every non-British version — there are sequences and even entire scenes that are subtitled.

For example, when characters speak backwards or in a warped fashion, or when the music or background noise stylistically drowns out the actors’ voices. David Lynch waffled on whether or not he should subtitle these scenes for so long that the British distributors made their prints without subtitles before he finally decided to include the subtitles, but the British distributors couldn’t afford to reprint, and so they just… didn’t.

1 Callback to 1990

There’s an entire sequence in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me that takes place in a convenience store. This sequence actually refers back to one of the very first episodes of Twin Peaks, the television show, when, under the influence of the spiritual entity “MIKE,” Philip Gerard tells Agent Dale Cooper that the spirits that reside in the Black Lodge live above a convenience store when they’re in the human world.

The convenience store theme will return in Twin Peaks season three, or Twin Peaks: The Return, to be used again by Lynch.

About The Author

Nicole Mello
(66 Articles Published)

Nicole Mello is an author of horrors, romances, and comedies. On occasion, they will attempt to combine all three, as there really isn’t too much to life overall than fear, love, and laughter.

Nicole currently resides in Massachusetts with their husband and two best friends. They encourage everyone reading this to question everything, stay hydrated, and treat others with kindness.

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