A lesson in 'Twin Peaks' backwards talking from David Lynch
"Repooc tnega olleh."
Try saying thatline with feeling. (Translation: "Hello Agent Cooper," but ... backwards.)
The unsettlingly surreal rewind-speak of the Black Lodge residents in Twin Peakshas always been something of a special skill for David Lynch's actors. It's a process: First they speak the line forwards, listen to the backwards playback and then repeat it, no matter how inhumanly tongue-twisted those sounds may turn out to be.
The backwards-spoken line is then itself rewound in the playback, revealing the spooky inflections specific to the Red Room.
SEE ALSO:David Lynch’s damn fine coffee got its own unsettling commercialDoing it requires patience and practice. Lynch – a famously hands-on director and, in this case, dialect coach – had to use a reel-to-reel tape back in the '90s to give his actors the proper sounds to work with. Nowadays all you need is an iPhone.
Well, that and a notepad.
Watch Lynch coach actress Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer) in this video from the extras in the home video release of Twin Peaks: The Return.
The DVD and Blu-ray release of Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series arrives Tuesday from CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Media Distribution with six hours – six hours!– of special features, including 80 minutes of behind-the-scenes content.
(We're most looking forward to Impressions: A Journey Behind the Scenes of Twin Peaks, a 10-part series of half-hour films directed by Jason S, longtime Lynch friend and documentarian.)
The above clip is from one of two Blu-ray-only featurettes directed by Richard Beymer (who plays Ben Horne) that follow Lynch and his actors as they shoot in the Red Room.
Yojne!
Featured Video For You
Can the Google Pixel Buds translate faster than expert interpreters?
TopicsCelebrities