List of Twin Peaks characters

The following is a list of characters from the television series Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

Overview

Concepts

Creation of BOB

Frank Silva was a set decorator who worked on the pilot episode. One day, when he was moving furniture in Laura Palmer's bedroom, a woman warned Silva not to get locked in the room. The image of Silva trapped in the room sparked something in Lynch, who then asked Silva if he was an actor. Silva said yes, and Lynch told him that he had a role in mind for him on the series. Silva accepted, and Lynch shot footage of him behind Laura's bed with no real idea of what he would do with it.

Silva's reflection was accidentally caught in the footage of Sarah Palmer's frightening vision at the end of the pilot. Sarah sees a hand uncovering Laura's heart necklace from the ground, and Silva can be seen in the mirror behind her head. Lynch was made aware of this accident and decided to keep Silva in the scene.

Laura Palmer

To save on money, Lynch intended to cast a local girl from Seattle "just to play a dead girl". The local girl ended up being Sheryl Lee. "But no one — not Mark, me, anyone — had any idea that she could act, or that she was going to be so powerful just being dead." Indeed, the image of Lee wrapped in plastic became one of the show's most enduring and memorable images. When Lynch shot the home movie that James takes of Donna and Laura, he realized that Lee had something special. "She did do another scene — the video with Donna on the picnic — and it was that scene that did it." As a result, Sheryl Lee became a semi-regular addition to the cast, appearing in flashbacks as Laura, and becoming a recurring character—Maddy, Laura's cousin who also becomes another victim of BOB.