SMELL THE
GLOVE
Jake Wardle on playing the
series’ unlikely hero, magic-
glove-wearing Freddie SykesWhen did you fi rst hear from
David Lynch?
In 2012 he saw my YouTube video [which
Wardle made in 2010, aged 18, and in which
he performs 24 different accents]. He
Skyped me and said I had a naturalness
about me and that he really wanted me in
one of his projects. Then in 2014 he said,
“Have you ever seen Twin Peaks? We’re
making a new one and you’re gonna be
in it.” He explained that I was gonna be
playing a Cockney guy called Freddie who
has a magic green glove. When I read the
script I was like, “Oh my gosh, I get to
kick some arse!”How much did you know about what you’d
end up doing?
The episode 17 scenes were kept secret from
me. We did the jail scene where I punch out
Chad [John Pirruccello], then David said,
“Tomorrow we’re gonna get you bloodied
up, you’re gonna be out there fi ghting BOB.”
I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t expecting to
fi ght BOB in orb form! That blew my mind.
Then I showed up and they gave me my lines
on a Post-it note. I was punching thin air. I
was told to imagine a black orb with BOB’s
face on it.What was Lynch like as a director?
He was saying, “Smack him! He’s knocked
you down!” He’s very hands-on. When
I punch the hole in the fl oor, around the hole
is all this yellowish stuff, creamed corn
mixed with something (standing in for
garmonbozia, a Twin Peaks symbol for evil),
and David’s down there with the paint brush,
painting the cream-corn mixture all over it.What was it like wearing that glove?
It was a rubber glove, custom-made for
me. They didn’t let me keep it. They
archive everything. So fi ngers crossed
for another season!us pondering — and worrying — once more.
Theories had abounded — that she was in
a coma, that the whole show was her dream, that
she had been institutionalised.The Final Dossier
details how, soon after she was hospitalised in
a coma, the doppelgänger, in Cooper’s black suit,
was seen exiting her room in the ICU. Audrey
later marries but eventually disappears, possibly
into a private-care facility. “We wanted
everybody to be travelling down different paths,
and this is where we ended up with Audrey,”
offers Frost. “We have her son [Richard, played
by Eamon Farren], who’s obviously a pretty
horrifying presence in the show. That all flows
from what happened to her when she was in
that hospital 25 years before.”THE PALMER HOUSE
In the fi nal moments of the shocking fi nale,
present-day Cooper, having gone back in time to
save Laura from death, revisits her only to fi nd
that he’s not himself anymore, and neither is she.
They both have different names, and nothing is
the same. They go to Laura’s mother’s house— but the lady living there has
no idea what they’re talking
about. Meanwhile the house’s
real-life owner, Mary Reber, plays
the fi ctional owner, cast by Lynch
on the spot as the crew revisited the
premises. So much meta.
“Cooper feels some sense of duty to
undertake this last quest for Laura,” explains
Frost. “He’s driven by it, and goes to great
lengths to pursue it. And he encounters truly
mortal danger, not just physically, but perhaps
metaphysically. There are echoes of classic
mythological themes. It’s Orpheus descending
into the Underworld. You are playing with
deep, profound, mysterious forces that will
have unintended consequences. In the old
mythology, as a mortal, to cross into the realm
of what was thought of as the gods’, meant you
risked everything. That’s what we’re seeing
happen here.”
Filming the fi nal scene with Sheryl Lee hit
MacLachlan hard. “That was an emotional
experience, defi nitely,” he says. “The whole
approach to the house was intimidating. The
house is a bit foreboding, a little overwhelming.
And the woman who opened the door, the way she
looked at us, directed by David — you know you’re
close to reality, but it’s not quite reality, there’s
something going on there that’s not healthy.”
The very last shot was the real kicker.
“When Sheryl screamed, that was her really
letting loose,” MacLachlan says. “And then
watching it, it immediately reminded me of
the ending of the pilot, when the hand picks
up the half-heart necklace and you hear Grace
Zabriskie’s scream, and then the echo. And you’re,
‘Oh my God. You just freaked me out.’ I knew
that it was gonna have that kind of impact.”
The moment still haunts him now, he admits.
The same is likely true for anyone who saw it.
While the original series ended on a cliffhanger,
this one, leaving Cooper in some sort of
alternative timeline, was discomforting on
altogether disconcerting levels. Television has
been changed again. Twin Peaks: what a ride.TWIN PEAKS: THE FINAL DOSSIER IS OUT NOW. THE
THIRD SEASON OF TWIN PEAKS IS AVAILABLE ON TO
SREAM ON STAN. THE DATE OF ITS RELEASE ON OTHER
FORMATS IS STILL TO BE CONFIRMEDAbove: Laura Palmer
lets out a bloodcurdling
scream after visiting her old
childhood home.
Below: Laura and Agent Cooper’s
view of the Palmer house.