“We got a lot of feedback about her”: The ‘Twin Peaks’ character David Lynch manifested 15 years in advance
One of the greatest things about Twin Peaks, besides its bizarre plotlines and perfect mixture of humour and emotional depth, is, of course, its array of unforgettable characters.
Not only did David Lynch and Mark Frost create one of the most lovable characters of all time in the form of FBI Agent Dale Cooper, played to perfection by Kyle MacLachlan, but Twin Peaks also gave us Laura Palmer, her smiling portrait an indelible image. She was so clearly the most important character of Lynch’s career, whom he treated with such love and respect despite everything she goes through.
Rounding out the cast was an ensemble of iconic characters, from the rather pathetic excuse for a bad boy, Bobby, and the brooding James, to the eccentric Dr Jacobi and Lynch’s own loud-mouthed Gordon Cole. But who can forget the Log Lady? The character was played by Catherine E Coulson, a mysterious glasses-wearing widow who is always seen clutching a log, often with something to tell us.
The character actually recorded introductions to every episode of the first two seasons, which are available on physical copies of the series, and she has become a particular fan favourite, representative of the utter strangeness of Lynch’s world. Interestingly, the character was in the works for over a decade before Twin Peaks was made, dating back to when the director and Coulson were working together on Eraserhead.
She starred in Lynch’s short film The Amputee in 1974 after meeting him three years earlier, but it would be her work behind the scenes on Eraserhead that cemented the pair’s long-running partnership. Even though she wasn’t really an actor, Lynch soon came up with an idea to involve her in another project, and this time she would play a woman with a log.
“I had this idea during Eraserhead that I described to her and Jack [Nance, Coulson’s then-husband, who would also play Pete in Twin Peaks] and whoever would listen. And it was called I’ll Test My Log with Every Branch of Knowledge! It’s a half-hour television show starring Catherine as the lady with the log,” he once revealed (via Lynch on Lynch).
The filmmaker described the project as being totally “absurd”, with the log representing the lady’s dead husband, a woodsman killed in a fire.
“Each show would start with her making a phone call to some expert in one of the many, many fields of knowledge. Maybe on this particular day she calls a dentist, but she makes the appointment for her log. And the log goes in the dental chair and gets a little bib and chain, and the dentist X-rays the log for cavities, goes through the whole thing, and the son is also there. Because she is teaching her son through his observations of what the log is going through.”
Lynch thought it would be an unconventional way to “learn something each week”, but sadly, the idea never caught on, and instead, the filmmaker would save this image of Coulson holding a log for around 15 years, eventually bringing it to the unique world of Twin Peaks.
“We were shooting the pilot, and we’re coming up to this scene in the Town Council meeting, and it struck me that Catherine had to be in this scene,” he explained. “And all she was gonna do was hold a log and turn the lights on and off to get people’s attention—there’s something about a lady with a log, you know? We got a lot of feedback about her, and so she became like a regular character”.
So, just like that, the Log Lady became one of Lynch’s most beloved characters, and really, is there any better way for her to have been created other than through him manifesting her existence 15 years beforehand? It only feels fitting.
