Executive producer Sabrina Sutherland revealed hidden truths about Twin Peaks: The Return during a Q&A session at the Twin Peaks UK Festival 2017. Stewart Gardiner was there to listen to the words.
By Stewart Gardiner // Sabrina Sutherland is executive producer on Twin Peaks: The Return. She has worked with David Lynch since Twin Peaks season 2 and was one of the most inspiring people to attend this year’s Twin Peaks UK Festival. Sabrina’s Q&A with Tom Huddleston took place early afternoon on the first day of the festival and was a perfect indication of what one could hope from the weekend: delightful, informative, friendly, and full of mystery.
It was an added bonus for me that she also touched on INLAND EMPIRE (a film that I’m endlessly fascinated by and indeed still grappling with).
I had the pleasure of meeting Sabrina Sutherland as part of the festival signings and she couldn’t have been more lovely. Her engagement with fans, including myself, went above and beyond. She really took the time to talk with everybody. It’s another real indication that being part of Twin Peaks fandom is a vastly more positive experience than any other fandom.
Sabrina Sutherland is a fantastic ambassador for Twin Peaks and the work of David Lynch. It was a privilege to get the opportunity to hear her talk.
David Approved
Sabrina explained that she didn’t hit it off with David immediately. It took her many years to become close with him. Her very first interaction with him resulted in David shouting at her. She had sent out an early second season script Lynch that wasn’t “David approved yet.” Not something she has done since!
When it came to the script of the infamous season 2 finale, Lynch told her, not without humor:
“Don’t send this to anybody else.”
Sabrina later clarified that David only approved season 2 scripts that he was directing. It is well documented that he wasn’t happy with the second season overall and it is clear his stamp of approval wasn’t upon many of the episodes.
Lynch realized that he wasn’t going to shoot the second season finale as written. Accounts have it that Lynch essentially threw out the script by Mark Frost, Harley Peyton, and Bob Engels, keeping some of the core character story points then improvising the rest on set. Sabrina clarified that this wasn’t quite the case. Yes, David did change the bulk of the script, but he actually wrote what all the changes were.
A Third Season Future Past
What direction would season 3 have taken if Twin Peaks had continued back in 1991? It’s hard to tell since David and Mark weren’t writing together at that point. They certainly had different ideas where season 3 would have gone.
On the Air
David Lynch and Mark Frost’s follow up to Twin Peaks was the sitcom On the Air, which unfortunately only lasted one season (not all of which was even aired in the US). “A lot of what David does is ahead of its time,” Sabrina explained. On the Air prefigured many shows that would follow.
The humor of On the Air might have surprised many, but it is very David. “David’s hysterical,” Sabrina Sutherland told the audience. “If you didn’t know: David’s very funny.”
INLAND EMPIRE
David had specific fillmaking needs to satisfy with INLAND EMPIRE. Firstly, he wanted to experiment. Part of this involved using a consumer grade DV camera, which Sabrina admitted was terrible quality. But the camera offered certain advantages that were more important to him at the time. He wanted to have a small crew, stay with the camera, and direct the actors in close quarters, which was only possible under the particular setup of INLAND EMPIRE.
“David still did camera work on our show.”
Referring to Twin Peaks: The Return, whose director of photography is frequent Lynch collaborator Peter Deming. All the “shaky-cam stuff” is however David.
The Missing Pieces
Lynch and team had just restored the lost scenes from Blue Velvet for the 25th anniversary blu-ray and CBS expressed interest in adding Fire Walk With Me to a new Twin Peaks box set. This led to Lynch and co. taking another look at the cut scenes from Fire Walk With Me. Three of them, including Sabrina Sutherland and Dean Hurley, went into the storage room to locate and catalogue the film. They thought they might add about 30 minutes of missing scenes, but Lynch ended up cutting together an hour and a half.
Fans had been waiting to see those scenes for over twenty years (I even asked David Lynch an audience question about those scenes when he appeared at the Glasgow Film Theatre in 2008). David and his team certainly gave the fans what they wanted and then some with The Missing Pieces. “We are very fan friendly,” said Sabrina. Ain’t that the truth!
Sabrina Sutherland On Writing The Return
Mark and David met to discuss continuing Twin Peaks after David had worked on The Missing Pieces. Mark brought up the idea and the timing was right; David was excited about it. David had ideas in his head which he brought to the conversation with Mark. He needs ideas to get going with something.
David and Mark wrote privately. They would Skype with each other.
Once the script was delivered to Showtime, Mark went off to write his book, The Secret History of Twin Peaks . Then “David would re-write.”
Sabrina would read pages from David:
“I would say I like that or I don’t like that. But I don’t know how much he listens to me.”
Sabrina clarified at this point that she can only speak directly of David, because she works with him and not Mark Frost.
Eagle Scouting
David and Sabrina secretly went up to Washington in 2014. “To see what was there and what was left.”
A Feature Film (Tele)Vision
David Lynch temporarily walked away from the show in 2015. Sabrina Sutherland shed more light on this.
Showtime considered The Return a television series, while David always thought of it as a feature film. Showtime applied the one minute per page rule to the script and came up with an episode count of 9. David didn’t know at that point exactly how many parts it should be, but he knew it was more than 9. Stepping away helped him get Showtime to understand this and accept that The Return needed to be more than 9 episodes long. David wanted to bring his vision to the screen.
David shot The Return like a feature film. Which meant by location rather than episodically.
Log Lady Memories
Catherine Coulson didn’t admit just how ill she was.
“She just wanted to do it. She didn’t want not to do it.”
They shot Catherine’s scenes 3 to 4 weeks into the Washington shoot. A crew went up to Catherine because it turned out that by that point she couldn’t travel to them. David directed her via Skype.
Acting Strange
“Everybody wants to work with David, for the most part. He’s an actor’s director.” And that doesn’t just go for the headline actors. “He treats everybody the same.”
There were a few people who opted not to be in the show. They were offered roles, but turned them down. That’s why Donna wasn’t in it, for example. Lara Flynn Boyle said no.
It was a tough shoot. Working six day weeks, twelve to fourteen hours a day. But everybody loved doing it.
There’s Always Music in the Air
David handpicked each band/musician. He “did pick the songs as well.”
“All the music is his. All the sound is his.”
Some have suggested that having less Angelo Badalamenti makes The Return ‘less Twin Peaks’ but Sabrina put that in context.
The guest directors on seasons 1 and 2 were told to ‘keep it like Twin Peaks.’ That meant applying wall to wall music from the Badalamenti library. It wasn’t a directive from David Lynch himself. Whereas The Return is his vision, music and all.
Fan Theories
“He’s happy that everybody has theories.”
David views them as being “as legitimate as his idea.”
Lynchian Line Reading
On Sabrina Sutherland playing floor attendant Jackie in The Return:
“David tortured me that day. I’m not an actress.”
He kept changing one of her lines before shooting; just enough to put her off!
60/40 Vision
On how much of The Return is David Lynch and how much is Mark Frost:
“60/40 David/Mark.” In terms of reflecting the person’s vision. David informed Mark about the major changes he made. Mark didn’t alter any of them.
Sabrina clarified further during the cast and crew Q&A on the Sunday:
“Mark wasn’t involved in the production elements, but would come and visit the set.”
So no involvement in production or post. He was writing his book and had possibly even started the second (The Final Dossier).
It’s Slippery in Here
An audience question on continuity errors as happy accidents or intentional inconsistencies that point at alternative realities. Sabrina’s reply was worthy of Lynch himself:
“David went through looking at every frame of the 18 hours. And he has approved everything.”
The Fans
“He knows the fans are amazing.”
David attracts amazing, intelligent people to his work “because he’s such a good person.”
I can certainly vouch for how amazing Twin Peaks fandom is. I’ve never attended such a wonderful and wonderfully inclusive event as the Twin Peaks UK Festival. It was incredible to make so many new friends over a single weekend; like-minded folks and not a hint of gatekeeping anywhere. The phrase “Welcome to Twin Peaks” has never held so much meaning for me.
Thanks to festival dreamer and architect Lindsey Bowden, Double R denizens Benjamin Louche and Rose Thorne, he-who-asks-questions Tom Huddleston, and everyone else who made the magic happen. This was my first time at the festival, but I’ll be a regular into the future.
An effusive Agent Cooper thumbs up to each and every person I spoke to and got to hang out with. You’re all fantastic.
Last but not least, it was ridiculously good fortune that Twin Peaks Scotia, 25 Years Later‘s Laura Stewart, and I joined forces for the Twin Peaks quiz on the Saturday night. We formed the Chet Desmonds, but we did not vanish under a Chalfont trailer. No siree. We won. We really won. It’s like that feeling when Cooper finally woke up in part 16. Although I learned something rather troubling about myself: my specialty was answering a question about a bad mid-1990s Wesley Snipes movie. All for the greater good though…
Listen to the Words
I’ll wrap things up in future past fashion by jumping forward (once again) to the cast and crew Q&A on the Sunday, which is now obviously in the past. Sabrina made some key points that are worth addressing here:
David and Mark wanted to make The Return contemporary. “They didn’t want it to be something in the past.”
David always knew the atomic explosion in part 8 was 8 minutes.
The first scene shot was Doc Hayward Skyping. The last scene shot was in Paris with Monica Bellucci.
Sabrina Sutherland closed the Sunday Q&A with words that fired up the room like Lynchian electricity. Words so thrillingly powerful that chanting them may allow the speaker to travel between worlds. That merely to hear them is to delight. These words:
“I know David’s not done directing.”
Music to my ears.