happyphantom:Kyle MacLachlan refused to further develop the storyline about his character Dale
happyphantom:Kyle MacLachlan refused to further develop the storyline about his character Dale Cooper’s relationship with Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn), resulting in the writers having to abruptly change and add several second season story lines. As originally scripted, Audrey Horne would have been the one kidnapped by Windom Earle and taken to the Black Lodge in the series finale; the characters of Justice Wheeler and Annie were written in specifically to give Dale and Audrey “appropriate” love interests. At the time, the relationship between Cooper and Audrey was heavily publicized in TV Guide and other entertainment magazines, akin to the press given to later TV “power couples” (such as Mike and Susan of Desperate Housewives). The move alienated audiences and caused a further decline in the show’s already suffering ratings. At the time, Kyle MacLachlan attributed his insistence to a belief that the morally upright Cooper would not date an underage girl; however, Audrey was a high school senior who, in the time line of the series, would have graduated in one to two months, and in fact was not “underage”— in Washington state, the age of consent is sixteen, and Audrey is seventeen in the pilot. Crew members who would later attend the annual Twin Peaks convention would recall that MacLachlan was pressured into the decision by his then-girlfriend, Lara Flynn Boyle, who did not want her boyfriend sharing love scenes with Fenn, with whom Boyle did not get along on set. -- source link