BAD COOP
MacLachlan’s performance as Cooper’s evil
doppelgänger is terrifying, all unsettling stillness
and horribly dead eyes. In The Final Dossier,
Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) describes a Native-
American concept in which a person approaching
spiritual enlightenment has to confront the
Dweller On The Threshold, which represents the
sum total of darkness and negativity inside of us.
“It’s an old spiritual concept that has very deep
roots in a lot of eastern philosophies,” explains
Frost. “Whether these things are metaphorical,
philosophical, factual, they become useful
metaphysical guidelines for
us to wend our way through
confrontations with darkness.”
MacLachlan had a “challenging” time
inhabiting the doppelgänger, who seems to almost
stain the world as he slinks through it. “For me it
was about creating this entity, this force, this
remorseless being, inhuman almost,” says
MacLachlan. “And how that person would treat
people, and the cunning of him. Honestly, when
we started I didn’t know if I could do it. And it
was so important to me to commit to it fully.”
The devil was in the detail. “Did he have
dirty fi ngernails, or was he super-manicured?
What were his jewellery choices, what were his
shoes? And then there was the matter of just
making him live. It was an isolating kind of place
to be, but necessary, for him. At the end of the
day I was quite content to hang up that costume
and wash up my face and come back to me.” ❯“GOTTA LIGHT?”
How Abraham Lincoln impersonator
Robert Broski became a demonic
WoodsmanYour Woodsman, a sinister otherworldly
lumberjack, has become instantly iconic.
What were you told about the job?
It was a big mystery. We didn’t know anything
[from the casting call] except that we would
be dark characters lurking around. There
were four of us Woodsmen. We showed up in
the middle of the Mojave desert and were
sitting there staring at each other, and
someone from the production said, “Okay,
we’re gonna spray you all black, inside your
ears, inside your nose.” Then a car pulled up
and David Lynch got out.How was it fi lming the infamous “Gotta
light?” sequence, in which you terrify
people in 1950s New Mexico?
David said, “This is what you’re
gonna say,” which was, “Gotta light?”
The direction he gave me pretty
much was, “Talk slower.”How about the radio-station scene, in
which you crush people’s skulls, then
broadcast a surreal looped speech?
I have large hands, which worked out well to
get my hand around the people’s heads and
squeeze the correct spots to have blood
come out. That dialogue is gonna be with me
the rest of my life. “This is the water, and this
is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse
is the white of the eyes, and dark within.”How would you sum up the vibe
of the character?
I knew David wouldn’t want us to be like
zombies. In my opinion it had to be
something more intelligent, more focused,
the determination of what the Woodsman
had to accomplish.What did your family make of it all?
I’ve got four kids, and after they saw it they
looked at me and were trying to fi gure out:
“Where the heck did this come from?” I pulled
that out from deep down inside of me.