Just as he was on the cusp of international superstardom thanks to The X-Files, David Duchovny was a relatively unknown actor taking what many might call a big risk — playing a trans woman in a surrealist TV series in 1990. 35 years ago, that kind of performance could have easily been insulting and one-dimensional, but Twin Peaks was a different kind of show, and Duchovny was a different kind of actor.
Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch, Twin Peaks embraced queerness in many ways, just like much of Lynch’s work, and Duchovny’s character of Denise Bryson, a former Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent who later becomes the FBI’s Chief of Staff, was an important stepping stone in representation. With the death of David Lynch on Jan. 15, 2025, some members of the LGBTQ+ community were paying tribute to Lynch through the form of Duchovny’s character, and through a specific line of dialogue in Twin Peaks: The Return, the acclaimed and belated third season of the show. When Duchovny spoke with MovieWeb about David Lynch, he said:
One of my favorite lines of my life, it was David’s line, where he says something that was basically the reaction to my character coming out as that identity, it was something like, “I told those clowns to fix their hearts or die.”
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The full context for the line finds Duchovny’s Twin Peaks character Denise reminiscing with Lynch’s character, Gordon Cole. Denise had apparently been the victim of bigotry at the administration, and compliments Cole for helping her at that time. “When you became Denise,” said Cole in Part 4 of Twin Peaks: The Return, “I told all of your colleagues, those clown comics, to fix their hearts or die.” Duchovny, of course, loved more than that one line. Speaking with MovieWeb, he heaped praise on the legacy of Twin Peaks and David Lynch, and how the auteur’s vision transcends time:
“It’s so amazing. It’s like listening to Hendrix in a way, because it sounds so current. Like if you watch Twin Peaks, I mean, think back. That’s 1989 or 1990. That’s network TV. That’s insane. And it feels like it could be on any streamer today. I guess that’s his true voice. You know, that’s what happens when you have an authentic voice […] I think he’s out of time [instead of ‘ahead of his time’]. If you’re not chasing a trend, but you’re not trying to speak in today’s voice all the time, then you’re always gonna be current.”
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David Duchovny on His Return to ‘Twin Peaks’ 26 Years Later
Duchovny was in three acclaimed episodes of Twin Peaks, and then his life blew up with the often very Lynchian series The X-Files, establishing Duchovny as a sex symbol. Between the many seasons and movies of that show, other series like Californication and Aquarius, and movies like Full Frontal, Evolution, and House of D, the actor’s trajectory was very different from Lynch’s. Yet, with Twin Peaks: The Return, Lynch brought back myriad actors he’d previously worked with, and not just from Twin Peaks. Naomi Watts, Laura Dern, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jane Adams, Harry Dean Stanton, Balthazar Getty, Trent Reznor, Rebekah Del Rio, and so many more appeared in the epic third season. Duchovny shared what it was like to come back into Lynch’s world:
“It was just so satisfying. Well first of all, Lynch is unique, right? He’s just like a consciousness unto himself, and there’s something about his work that is completely unique. You can just see 10 seconds of anything, and you go, ‘This must be David Lynch.’ And who’s like that? Nobody. Nobody’s like that.“
Duchovny explained the day he shot his scene for Twin Peaks: The Return, with the actor wanting the character “to look a little better” this time around.
“I think I was doing Aquarius at the time, and I just had one, one day where I was gonna go in and shoot that scene with David. It was such an occasion for me, to kind of feel gratitude for instinct or whatever. I auditioned for that role [in the original series] like anybody else. You know, I didn’t think I was gonna get it, just like I would at any time at that point in my career. But I got it without really knowing what I was going to do, and I just kind of flew by the seat of my pants and did what I did. And then it was 25 years later or whatever, and we got to do it together again.”
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The role of trans woman Denise Bryson sees Duchovny wearing feminine-coded clothing (sometimes referred to as ‘drag’). His self-conscious desire to look better led Duchovny to ask Lynch if he could show off his legs in the scene… an idea the filmmaker was not on board with.
“And you know, it was funny, because I wasn’t in love with the way I looked. I wanted her to look a little better. I just had this vanity about her. And so I thought, ‘Okay, I’ve still got good legs. Should I set myself in front of the desk for the scene with David?‘ And I said, ‘Do you mind if I sit on the edge of the desk so you’re facing me, rather than behind the desk?’ And he said, ‘No, that would make me uncomfortable.'”
The original two seasons of Twin Peaks are streaming for free on Pluto TV here. They’re also streaming, with the whole third season event, on Paramount+ through the link below:
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