Twin Peaks
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$10 Million
“Twin Peaks gave me everything I have as an actor. It put me where I am now because it was so beautifully soulful, and I think it just brought out the best of the actors. There was no acting going on – we were living on Twin Peaks. It gave me my career.” While Lara Flynn Boyle was no stranger to Hollywood before being cast as teenager Donna Hayward on the cult television series Twin Peaks, it was that David Lynch show that catapulted the actress to international prominence. Since that time, the actress has enjoyed a diverse and successful career on stage and screen.
After a string of supporting roles and having her scenes cut from two major movies, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Dead Poets Society, Laura Flynn Boyle needed a break. This is exactly what she got when she was cast on Twin Peaks. While the show was one of 1990s top-rate series, its rating dropped during the second season and it was canceled in 1991. Still, Boyle’s work on Twin Peaks made her famous, and laid the groundwork for a long-running career in Hollywood. Looking for more information on this iconic actress? Here’s the scoop on how Lara Flynn Boyle got to Twin Peaks, and where she's been in the years since.
From Davenport, Iowa to Twin Peaks, Washington
Lara Flynn Boyle was born in Davenport, Iowa on March 24, 1970 to parents Sally and Michael Boyle, who named her after a character in the classic novel, Doctor Zhivago. She moved several times as a child, and has called both Illinois and Wisconsin home. Boyle is a graduate of the Chicago Academy for the Arts.
Did you know that Lara Flynn Boyle had a part in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? If this is news to you, there’s good reason: her scenes were deleted from the movie’s final cut. The film did play an important part in Boyle’s life, however: It earned the actress a coveted SAG card. Following Ferris Bueller, Boyle had a number of supporting roles and guest appearances on television shows, including Amerika, Jack and Mike, and Sable. Boyle finally hit the big time in 1998 when she was cast in a lead role in the horror film Poltergeist III. A year later, she landed a part in Dead Poets Society, but her scenes from that flick also ended up on the cutting room floor.
Despite the ups and downs Boyle experienced in the industry, a life-changing opportunity was headed her way in the form of a new David Lynch television pilot, Northwest Passage. That pilot would eventually become Twin Peaks.
Boyle skyrocketed to stardom while on the show, appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine alongside two of her costars, Sherilyn Fenn and Mädchen Amick. At the time, she was barely 20. She also appeared in several features films while on Twin Peaks, including The Rookie, The Dark Backward, Mobsters, and Eye of the Storm, as well as the television films Terror on Highway 91 and The Preppie Murder.
In reflecting on the profound impact Twin Peaks had on her career Boyle says, “Twin Peaks gave me everything I have as an actor. It put me where I am now because it was so beautifully soulful, and I think it just brought out the best of the actors. There was no acting going on -- we were living on Twin Peaks. It gave me my career.”
Boyle also speaks fondly of director David Lynch. “I remember, in the pilot, I did a very long scene that we had to shoot 30 or 40 times. David came up to me and said quietly, in my ear: 'Think of how gently a deer has to move in the snow…' It was strange direction. But that's what I thought of, and it worked. We were at the helm of a piece of heaven on Twin Peaks and we just went where David Lynch told us. That might sound very obscure but it really is true. How he sees the world is how we should all see the world,” Boyle insists.
Moving On and Men in Black
While Twin Peaks went on to be adapted as a feature film, Boyle was unavailable to reprise her role due to scheduling conflicts with other movie commitments, including Where the Day Takes You, Wayne’s World, and Equinox. Other movies in which Boyle appeared following Twin Peaks include The Temp, Red Rock West, Threesome, Baby’s Day Out, and The Road to Wellville.
While Boyle had made appearances on several television films after Twin Peaks, it wasn’t until she auditioned for David E. Kelley’s Ally McBeal that a full-time return to television was in the cards. After being passed over for the title role of Ally McBeal for Calista Flockhart, Boyle was instead offered the role of Assistant District Attorney Hellen Gamble on the acclaimed 1997 series, The Practice. In fact, Kelley was so impressed by Boyle’s Ally McBeal audition that he created the role just for her.
Boyle starred on The Practice until 2003, when most of her castmates were let go in an attempt to trim costs and salvage the show. Still, Boyle’s performance on The Practice received significant critical praise, and she was nominated for an Emmy. She and the other members of The Practice cast also received several ensemble cast nominations from the Screen Actors Guild.
Boyle more than landed on her feet after being dismissed from The Practice. She scored the lead role in the blockbuster feature film Men in Black II alongside Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith and Rip Torn. She later appeared in a seven-episode stint on the television show Las Vegas, as well as in additional movies and television shows, including on Huff, Las Vegas, and Cougar Hunting. Boyle has also tried her hand at producing.
Celebrated for her beauty, Boyle is also known for having dated several leading men, including her Twin Peaks costar Kyle MacLachlan, Jack Nicholson and David Spade. She has since settled down and is married to real estate investor Donald Ray Thomas II.
While Boyle rarely makes public appearances today, she maintains a sense of humor about what it means to live life in the public eye due to the nature of her career. “I'm an actress, nothing is personal,” she says. “It's all out in the open.”
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